


seven one seven

by xiiaeo



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Astronaut, Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, Mars, Science Fiction, Suspense, Unsettling, WHAT GOES ON, and mingyu the other AI, and other 97 liners, featuring minghao the trusty AI, lab coat seokmin, seokmin is a chemist, seoksoon, soonseok, soonyoung is an engineer, space, what almay wants
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-27
Updated: 2019-08-04
Packaged: 2020-05-17 00:16:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 31,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19328998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xiiaeo/pseuds/xiiaeo
Summary: “I’m serious,” the chemist insists at the warning drawl, “You’ve got nothing to worry about.”“I’ve got everything to worry about,” Soonyoung replies pointedly, subconsciously mirroring the smile directed at him.“Because I’m your everything?”Soonyoung purses his lips as if he wants to give a witty response, but ends up settling for sincerity, “Yes, you are.”





	1. PART_ONE

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lovefoolthatsme](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovefoolthatsme/gifts).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please read the tags or you might miss the fact that gyuhao are literal robots
> 
> so before i say anything else, this is what almay wants, so if you have grievances, take them up with her. also i would’ve ideally written seokjae for this fest but soonyoung wouldn’t let me, so if that upsets you, take it up with him. big thanks to tori my one true beta for putting up with my bs <3
> 
> my song for the 97!atd fest is Crazy=Genius and while this fic may not appear to pander to the lyrics at first, it matches the chorus most and you’ll be wishing it never did :) inspiration for this fic also came from a combination of the movies interstellar and the martian, as well as a game called observation. A Lot of research went into this to make it as scientifically accurate as possible, but I ain’t no chemist (I’m a physicist) so please do excuse any dodgy chemical reactions that take place <3 there shall be No artificial gravity in this fic because we have not yet found the graviton >:(
> 
> set some time in the future but not Very far
> 
> I usually hate writing in present tense but it was just better suited for this fic, and I’ve never attempted something of this style before so I hope I can do it justice and portray my vision the way I intend
> 
> The Sol [Number] system is just the way that days are counted on Mars, but an Earth day is roughly the same as a Mars day so we good
> 
> ISS = International Space Station
> 
> disclaimer: I’ve never been to Mars
> 
> off we go :]

**D-12**

 

“You’re crazy,” Soonyoung huffs a laugh, lounging on his bed with one leg hanging off the edge and one bent up to the bunk above.

 

“As a matter of fact,” Seokmin begins, putting his pencil down and then advancing on the defenceless engineer, “I’m a genius.”

 

“Oh, are you now?” Soonyoung teases, easily letting the other invade his personal space, “How is using explosions as a safety precaution the work of a genius?”

 

“Do you think a madman would bother to control the explosion?” Seokmin points out, hovering over the other, “It's the fastest way to expel harmful gases.”

 

“As long as you aren’t enveloped in said gases,” Soonyoung counters, fingers coming up to play with the pendant that hangs above him from where it’s clasped around Seokmin’s neck, “What happens then?”

 

“I’m afraid my lab tests don’t give me permission to coat someone in hydrazine and set them on fire,” Seokmin murmurs in mock sadness, “Educated guess, it wouldn’t be nice.”

 

“The things your mind can do once you’ve acquired a PhD,” Soonyoung marvels sarcastically, pulling the chemist closer by the thin chain.

 

“Says you,” Seokmin smiles, pressing a kiss to the other’s lips, “The man who tried to cook an egg in a toaster.”

 

“The man who _succeeded_ in cooking an egg in a toaster,” Soonyoung corrects, eyebrows raised in offence, “And if I remember correctly, you said they tasted good.”

 

“In all fairness,” Seokmin lowers himself to lie between the wall and his boyfriend, the latter rolling to snuggle into his chest, “They were pretty good.”

 

Soonyoung hums, successfully placated, while Seokmin cards gentle fingers through his hair in a repeated motion. A comforting warmth spreads over the pair while Soonyoung listens to the steady rhythm of Seokmin’s heart and murmurs into his collar bones, “Aren’t you scared?”

 

“Of what?” Seokmin asks between the ticks of the clock, twilight hours settling in with their silence.

 

“Space,” Soonyoung reveals and Seokmin’s hand stills in his hair.

 

“If you’re about to tell me you’re scared of space, I’m going to have to tell you you’re definitely heading down the wrong career path, Mr. Engineer-Turned-Astronaut.”

 

“Shut up,” Soonyoung pushes away from the other with no real malice, now looking into his eyes, “I’m serious, space is terrifying. You’re not even a _bit_ scared?”

 

“Well, yeah, of course I am. I’m scared of a system failure or blowing up before we even leave the atmosphere, but I’m not scared of actually being in space.”

 

“ _How_?” Soonyoung demands to know, “It’s just nothingness filled with loads of things that could kill you.”

 

“We both know that between here and Mars there’s not many hazards, unless a black hole comes hurting through the galaxy, in which case we’ll all die anyway.”

 

“ _Seokmin_.”

 

“I’m serious,” the chemist insists at the warning drawl, “You’ve got nothing to worry about.”

 

“I’ve got everything to worry about,” Soonyoung replies pointedly, subconsciously mirroring the smile directed at him.

 

“Because I’m your everything?”

 

Soonyoung purses his lips as if he wants to give a witty response, but ends up settling for sincerity, “Yes, you are.”

 

“Aw, how sweet,” Seokmin coos, pressing a kiss to Soonyoung’s forehead before enveloping the other in a tight embrace again, “You’re my everything too.”

 

“I know,” Soonyoung mumbles playfully into the skin of Seokmin’s neck before his breath ghosts across the surface in a sigh, “I’m going to miss you.”

 

“I’ll miss you too,” Seokmin utters before continuing in a lighthearted manner, “But there’s no point missing me while I’m here.”

 

“I know,” the light flicks off after Seokmin had searched along the wall blindly for the switch next to the bed, “But you’re going to be gone for a long time, I can’t just ignore it.”

 

“Believe me, it’s not something I like to think about either. I’m going to be on _another planet_ and it’ll take seven months just to get there in the first place, never mind the years I’ve got to spend on the planet, but we can still communicate while I’m gone, _and_ after that first year of life on Mars you’ll be setting off to come visit.”

 

“Seven months, a year, then another seven months, if all goes well,” Soonyoung repeats in a sombre tone, “And we can’t really _talk_ during the whole thing because all conversations go through main comms.”

 

“They do, the typed conversations, but we can send each other private video messages, we are still entitled to some privacy, you know,” Seokmin jokes, “And I know it’ll take some time to send the videos back and forth and that they _definitely_ won’t be first priority, we both know that, but it’s better than nothing.”

 

“I know,” Soonyoung whines, extending the words, “I’m still sad that you’re going.”

 

“Just think of it like I’m going on holiday.”

 

“For two years?”

 

“Mhm, I’m going to a place called the McLaughlin crater, I’ve heard it’s lovely.”

 

“Really? I’ve heard you travel fifty million miles to get there only to find out it’s nothing but dust and rocks,” Soonyoung responds, instantly thwarting the role-play before repeating his words now that their meaning had sunk in, “You're going to be _fifty million miles away.”_

 

“I am, but I’m still orbiting the same sun, right?” Seokmin attempts to reassure the other, “I’ll be able to see Earth sometimes, I’ll wave to you—Or should I do what every other human does when given a fresh surface and draw a dick in the dust for the whole world to behold?”

 

Soonyoung’s laughter eases Seokmin’s own nerves, “ _Please_ draw a penis on Mars.”

 

“I will, just for you.”

 

Soonyoung snorts, “How romantic.”

 

**D-5**

 

Soonyoung walks into his and Seokmin’s shared room at the HQ while stretching out a crick in his neck, confused to find the young astronaut hunched over his desk rapt in study, “ _Surely_ you don’t have any work to be doing at this point.”

 

“I’m going to _Mars_ , I can’t be too prepared.”

 

“Fair enough,” Soonyoung gives in, closing the door and reaching up to ruffle his damp hair with the towel hanging around his neck, “How’s the rest of Aries doing?”

 

“As well as can be expected,” Seokmin admits with a heavy sign, leaning back in the company office chair while rubbing at his eyes, and making a noise of offence when Soonyoung takes the pen that was nestled between his knuckles, “Hey.”

 

“It’s bedtime,” Soonyoung informs, walking around the other to perch on the desk in front of him and place the pen atop the scribbled chemical equations, “Science can wait.”

 

“Shouldn’t you be testing the engines or something?” Seokmin asks, trying to rid himself of the pesky engineer.

 

“I’m flattered that you think I’d be trusted with such an important task, but no, I have nothing to be doing and neither do you,” he takes Seokmin’s hands so he can drop himself into the other’s lap sideways, legs dangling over one arm of the chair at the knees, “Which means we have some time together, which is something we won’t have very soon for a _very long time_ —”

 

“I know, I know,” Seokmin announces in an attempt to stop the lecture he’s receiving, sighing as a form of stress relief, “I’m sorry, I’ve just been working and working because if I’m working then I’m not thinking about the fact that I’m going to be on _Mars_ next year.”

 

“You don’t need to apologise, I know you’re stressed,” Soonyoung smiles, eyes softening as he loops his arms around Seokmin’s neck. “You’re set to land on your birthday, are they going to let you be the first man on Mars as a present?”

 

Seokmin scoffs, “As if, I had to bargain with them for the right to a fair match of rock paper scissors before we step out, they’d never just _give_ me that first step.”

 

“They’re mean,” Soonyoung decides, playing with the hair at Seokmin’s nape as the cool air from the AC tickles past them, “I’d let you step out first no matter what.”

 

“I’d like us to step out _together_ ,” Seokmin argues and then pouts, “But we aren’t going together.”

 

“I’m sure you can give me a grand tour of the crater when I arrive,” Soonyoung enthuses, bringing his arms back to his chest to lean into the other, “Show me your favourite rocks and dust piles.”

 

“It’ll be absolutely riveting,” Seokmin rolls his eyes in amusement, “But the last thing I’ll be thinking about when you’re on Mars is showing you around.”

 

“And why’s that?” Soonyoung enquiries, smiling around the words because he already knows the answer to his question, he’s heard the fantasy a thousand times before.

 

“I may not be the first person to step on Mars, but I’ll be damned if I’m not the first person to have sex on Mars.”

 

**D-3**

 

“Seokmin,” he’s spaced-out is the first thing Soonyoung notices upon entering their room, and the heave of his shoulders is what he spots second, “Seokmin, are you okay?”

 

“No,” is the breathy response he gets from the other, after which the tremble in his breath makes him panic more and scared eyes flicker to Soonyoung for help.

 

“Hey, you’re fine,” the older coaxes, having shut the door and swiftly made his way over to kneel in front of Seokmin, who sat on the edge of the bottom bunk, “What happened?”

 

“Nothing,” Seokmin exhales, shaky hands now encased in a loving grip, “Nothing happened.”

 

“Okay,” Soonyoung nods reassuringly, ensuring he has Seokmin’s full attention, “Look at me. You’re okay, alright? Right now, you’re completely fine, you’re safe and I’m here, okay? I want you to breathe when I breathe, okay?”

 

Seokmin attempts to nod but it translates to a jerky shake of the head, and then he begins to follow Soonyoung’s breathing. It’s a long process of the engineer repeating the words in and out over and over again, and Seokmin’s breath stuttering pathetically more times that he can count, but eventually the ticking of the clock precedes over the thumping of his heart, and he gives a deep exhale of relief, “I think I’m okay, thank you.”

 

“You don’t need to thank me,” Soonyoung chides gently, getting up to sit next to Seokmin on the bed while still holding his hands, “Has that happened before?”

 

Seokmin sighs, “Not really, I just got so anxious out of nowhere.”

 

“About the mission?”

 

“Yeah…”

 

“You’re gonna be fine!” Soonyoung exclaims in encouragement, “You’ve got the rest of Aries, plenty of stuff to watch and read and do while you’re travelling, then you get to mess around with Martian soil for a year, how many people can say they’ve done that? Also, you’re gonna push Yugyeom and Jaehyun out of the way to be the first to step on Mars, you’re gonna draw a penis in the dust _and we’_ re gonna have sex, after another year and seven months, but still, it’ll happen.”

 

“I know,” Seokmin gives a small smile at the events detailed in the quick summary, “But there’s so much that can go wrong.”

 

“Do you really think that after all these years of research and testing that they’d send actual humans to Mars if they thought there was a chance of something major going horribly wrong? I’d say your biggest worry should be having to board with Jaehyun, but that should actually be _my_ worry, not yours,” Soonyoung teases the younger about his mild infatuation with the other astronaut in an attempt to rid him of his anxieties, “Maybe me and you won’t be the first to have sex on Mars afterall.”

 

Seokmin hums, still quick witted despite his nerves, “Nah we will be, but he might be on that list with us.”

 

Soonyoung is rendered positively speechless.

 

**D-1**

 

Soonyoung pounces on his lover the second the door locks to a close behind him, starling the younger who falls back against the wooden surface with lips swiftly meeting his. The message was soon received as Seokmin snapped out of his shocked haze to return the feverance, leading the dance of lost garments over to the warmth of the bottom bunk where he came to be straddled by the engineer, face to face as their bodies kissed, “I’m going to make love to you like it’s your last night on this Earth.”

 

“It is,” Seokmin murmurs, spellbound by the man above him, before realising that his words were not meant to be mere fact, “ _Oh_ , right, yeah, that’s the point, I get it.”

 

“You’re insufferable.”

 

Seokmin smiles, “But you love me.”

 

“I do.”

 

**D-0**

 

Soonyoung is gnawing on his lower lip and tapping his foot on the floor erratically when the alarm wakes Seokmin up and he mumbles his first word of the day, “Morning.”

 

“Good morning,” Soonyoung gives what he hopes in an encouraging smile, halting the drumming of his foot, “Sleep well?”

 

“Hardly,” Seokmin rolls around and shuffles out of the bed, getting dressed as he usually does, half-asleep and stumbling into his clothes to escape the cool air, “I was hoping I’d slept through liftoff, did I succeed?”

 

“Unfortunately not,” Soonyoung points to their clock displaying the ridiculously early hour to them mockingly, “I don’t suppose we’ll have much time to talk once we leave this room.”

 

“Not intimately anyway,” Seokmin concurs, sitting on his desk chair to wiggle his feet into cotton socks, “How long have you been up for?”

 

“I didn’t really sleep,” Soonyoung admits, “I got up and got dressed a while ago and was surprised I didn’t wake you up.”

 

“I was determined to sleep through liftoff, I told you,” Seokmin laughs before coming to sit next to the other and take a smaller hand in his, “Seven months, one year, and another seven months.”

 

“That’s two years and two months, I figured that out last night.”

 

“Yeah?” Seokmin taunts lightheartedly, “And how long did that take you?”

 

“Shut up,” Soonyoung complains, knocking Seokmin’s shoulder with his own.

 

“Did you use a calculator?” Seokmin enquiries, knowing full-well that the other definitely used the one on his phone.

 

“ _Listen_ ,” Soonyoung punctuates his defence clearly, “When you’ve been doing really complex calculations you forget how to do simple stuff like _‘what do you add to seven to make twelve’_ , alright? It’s a genuine thing that happens.”

 

“I’m sure it is,” the chemist teases, enjoying their running joke that Soonyoung is just incapable of basic arithmetic.

 

Their alarm going off for the second time beckons them to go for an early breakfast and the pair sigh simultaneously, sharing a small laugh at their synchronicity. No one knows they’re a couple, besides maybe Jaehyun, and they’d like to keep it that way. Not only is it _highly_ unprofessional in any standard work environment, but if their senior staff found out then one of them, likely Soonyoung due to him being on Scorpio, would be removed from the mission entirely.

 

Seokmin stands and guides Soonyoung with a gentle grip on the hand until they’re at the door, “I guess this is goodbye.”

 

“We’re going to eat breakfast together, you idiot,” Soonyoung jokes to reduce the gravity of the situation despite the glassy shine that fills his eyes, “And we’re going to see each other again, on Mars.”

 

“You know what I mean,” Seokmin smiles, taking Soonyoung’s face in his hands, “But please don’t cry or I’ll cry and then we’ll both be crying and we don’t want that.”

 

“I won’t cry,” Soonyoung demands of himself, fingers encircling Seokmin’s wrists to bring their hands together between them, “This isn’t goodbye.”

 

“It’s not,” Seokmin declares, “It’s goodbye _for now_.”

 

Soonyoung rolls his eyes fondly, “An extended see you later.”

 

“Exactly,” Seokmin nods, “See you later when we’re fifty million miles from home and stood on Mars.”

 

Soonyoung lets go of Seokmin’s hands to wrap his arms around the other’s neck in a tight embrace, the chemist returning it with arms looped around the small of his back. A scent that can only be described as warmth fills Soonyong’s nostrils as he inhales it like it’s the last time he’ll ever smell it again, voice muffled in the fabric covering Seokmin’s shoulder, “I’m going to miss you.”

 

“I’ll miss you too,” Seokmin murmurs with equal sincerity into the strands of Soonyoung’s hair tickling his cheek, feeling the older astronaut melt into him.

 

“I don’t want to let go,” Soonyoung confesses, face buried in the crook of Seokmin’s neck.

 

“I know,” Seokmin hums with empathy, a smooth tone that vibrates through their bodies, while gently guiding the other out of the embrace, “But you have to.”

 

“I know,” Soonyoung mirrors, a strained smile at his lips when he presses them to Seokmin’s, “I love you.”

 

“I love you too,” Seokmin echoes, a moment of silence passing in which they map out the other’s face as if committing it to memory, before sharing in a more lengthy liplock.

 

**━ᕕ━**

 

Soonyoung loiters nervously at the back of the control room with his fellow Scorpio astronauts while everyone involved in the technicalities of the launch slaves over countless computers. His eyes are trained on the big screen displaying the upright Aries shuttle, where the love of his life is currently strapped in and waiting to be blasted into space.

 

“You’re not sat in the shuttle, you know,” Wonwoo, his best friend at the company and a member of the communications team, points out to him with slight mirth and mild concern, “You’re drip white.”

 

Soonyoung gives him a _look_ at his stating of the obvious, “I’m worried. So much can go wrong in the launch phase.”

 

“It won’t,” Wonwoo declares with a certainty he can’t actually have, “You worked on some of that equipment.”

 

“That’s why I’m worried,” Soonyoung manages to joke despite the ball of anxiety stuck in his throat, drawing his eyes back to the screen, “They’re going to Mars.”

 

“They are,” Wonwoo cocks his head as a gesture for Soonyoung to follow him back to his desk amongst all the others in the crowded area, “So are you, after them.”

 

Soonyoung exhales in a huff, cheeks puffing forwards at the action, “Yeah, I’ll think about that later. Am I supposed to be here?”

 

Wonwoo shrugs, sitting at his desk and navigating through software on his computer, “I don’t see why not, comms aren’t really doing anything at the moment unless something comes through from their end. We’ll be calling count at sixty, thirty, twenty, and then from ten downwards. I can safely get you ten seconds now where you two can only hear each other.”

 

“Who two?”

 

“Don’t play coy with me,” Wonwoo chides, looking at the large timer displaying just over a minute left till blast-off, “Do you want ten seconds or not?”

 

“Please,” Soonyoung practically begs when it becomes obvious that Wonwoo _knows_ , and the latter hands him some headphones, pointing to the button on the microphone stand.

 

“Hold it down, it’ll cut off automatically after ten seconds.”

 

“Are you sure?”

 

“Yes I’m sure,” Wonwoo insists, “I’m not trying to out you on live international TV.”

 

Soonyoung looks away from the technician, taking a deep breath to calm himself, and is thankful for the animated chatter and bustling atmosphere in the control room. He waits with his pulse thrumming in his eardrums to hear the sixty second mark announced before Wonwoo works the technology and gives the go-ahead, prompting Soonyoung to press the button down with no time to spare and pouring his final rushed words into Seokmin’s unsuspecting ears.

 

_Seokmin_

**_Soonyoung?_ **

_I only have ten seconds_ **_Is that you?_ ** _but I just wanted to say that I love you. I love you so much_ **_I love you too_ ** _and you’re gonna be fine, okay?_

 **_Okay_ **

_I love you_

**_I love you more_ **

_I doubt that_

**_Come to Mars and prove it then_ **

_I will, don’t you worry_

**_Soonyoung?_ **

_Yeah?_

**_Goodbye_ **

_I told you, this isn’t goodbye_

**_Alright, I love you, see you later_ **

 

Wonwoo gives him a comforting pat on the shoulder and a sly yet comforting smile, “I recorded that for you, it’ll be in your emails.”

 

Soonyoung just nods, finger slipping off of the button while he continues to stare at the live feed of the shuttle. Screens flicker in his peripherals with constant updates from all systems aboard, social media feeds and news reels. Soon enough, the call for thirty seconds sounds in the room, on the shuttle and throughout the world. Then twenty. Then ten.

 

Nine.

 

Eight.

 

Soonyoung doesn’t join the countdown. He doesn’t dare speak in case his voice would somehow disturb the whole procedure.

 

Seven.

 

Six.

 

Five.

 

The thrusters have long since been activated; they’re just waiting to deliver the final push.

 

Four.

 

Three.

 

All hands on deck with dials being turned, buttons pressed and output analysed to the tiniest degree of accuracy in search of any cause to abort the mission. 

 

Two.

 

One.

 

Everyone in the control room collectively holds their breath for what feels like an eternity while millions around the world likely cheer prematurely. Numbers are being called across the expanse of incoming data but Soonyoung doesn’t register them, he knows they’re important but he couldn’t care less. He watches when the first chunk of shuttle detaches in the first phase and his breath hitches. It happens again in the second phase and eventually they lose visual of Aries.

 

Something about passing escape velocity reaches Soonyoung’s ears but he doesn’t allow himself to relax yet. It’s a few minutes that stretch into a lifetime, a few minutes of Seokmin hurtling into a vast nothingness, and a few minutes Soonyoung never wishes to relive, until the chief analyst announces, “Aries has left the atmosphere at the necessary trajectory to follow the planned orbital path to Mars.”

 

A roar of celebration sounds in the control room, and Soonyoung’s heart sighs.

 

**D+7**

 

Wonwoo enters what is now only Soonyoung’s room with a small knock, discovering the astronaut to be lying on his bed and looking worse for the wear, “You alright?”

 

“Exhausted,” Soonyoung barely voices, not wanting to waste any more energy than necessary, “We were in the pool for hours today.”

 

“I thought you liked the pool?” Wonwoo questions, letting the door swing to a close behind himself while he takes a seat on an abandoned desk chair.

 

“I do,” Soonyoung confirms, swinging his legs around to haul himself to a seated position facing the other, hands out in front of himself for balance while the black speckles fade from his vision, “I just really need a break.”

 

Wonwoo flashes a half-smile of sympathy, privy to the rigorous training schedule that all the Scorpio crew have been subjected to since the successful launch of Aries, “Lie back down then.”

 

Soonyoung shakes his head, determined knuckles pushing him up off of the bed, “I need to eat.”

 

“Can’t argue with that,” Wonwoo gets up, clearly wary of the other’s depleted energy levels, “If you pass out I’ll do my best to catch you.”

 

“Gee, thanks,” Soonyoung rolls his eyes and wishes he didn’t for the moment the world appears to spin, blinking harshly to right himself, “And if your best isn’t good enough?”

 

“At least I tried.”

 

Soonyoung smiles fondly, the expression falling from his face when he casts a glance back at the room he’s spent so much time in, with Seokmin. The usually cluttered desk is tidy for once and no socks poke out of jam packed drawers, no snack wrappers litter the floor around the bin to tell tales of missed shots fired from the bunk above. Soonyoung’s eyes catch on the glossy photo tacked to the wall above their bedside table and he leaves the room with a solemn sigh.

 

**D+59**

 

_“Hi Soonyoung,” he smiles, “Earth is getting smaller and smaller as the days go by, and I had a mild panic a while back thinking about what if the moon swings around and hits us when we reach its orbital path, but Jaehyun calmed me down.”_

 

“I bet he did,” Soonyoung mutters to himself, amused.

 

_“I kind of miss gravity, I’ll never get used to just sleeping...stood up? Laying down? I don’t even know which way is up, but I guess it doesn’t really matter,” he glances around the little capsule he’s sat strapped down in, as if looking for something to talk about, “Oh, I’ve become a master of chess and chase the ace while up here, so there’s that. I miss you.”_

 

The sudden change in tone makes Soonyoung smile, a bittersweet curl of the lips.

 

_“I wish you were here with me, it’s scary alone,” he admits, looking out of a window to the side where Soonyoung can envision the endless darkness, “Being surrounded for at least tens of thousands of miles in every direction by absolutely nothing isn’t the nicest feeling. I know we’ve both been on board the ISS before but this is really different, going away from Earth...How’s Earth? Anything interesting going on? How are you doing? Are you still cuddling my hoodie to get to sleep? My heart melted when you told me that.”_

 

Soonyoung glances down to the bundled up material on his lap while he’s sat cross legged on his bed, tablet in hand, feeling very called out in the most comforting way possible.

 

_“I’m still wearing this,” he takes hold of the necklace floating in front of his face to keep it still, “Even though it has poked me in the eye more than once.”_

 

Soonyoung’s fingers reach up to play about his own collar where a sliver of silver chain disappears under the soft material.

 

_“Research is a bit slow for me since most of the chemical analysis I’ve been sent to do can only happen once we’re actually on Mars, but I help the American physicist sometimes when she’s not too proud to ask for it,” he smiles as if they have some running joke going on between the pair of them and Soonyoung doesn’t doubt that that’s the case, “Did you get the audio file I sent you? It was hard to record that up here because everyone was listening to me, and now they keep asking me to sing for them.”_

 

Someone opens the hatch next to Seokmin and floats into frame. 

 

_“Who are you talking to?”_

 

It’s Jaehyun, Soonyoung realises.

 

_“Soonyoung.”_

 

_“Hi future Soonyoung,” Jaehyun waves at the camera, “We’ve got to meet for a briefing so I’m stealing Seokmin away, I hope you don’t mind.”_

 

“I do,” the engineer pouts, sat by himself millions of miles away watching a recording.

 

_“He does,” Seokmin echoes, making Soonyoung feel more spiritually connected to him than ever before. He looks at his fellow crew member before turning back to the camera, “I guess I’ll talk to you later.”_

 

The pair wave to him and say their goodbyes before the screen cuts to black, but not before Soonyoung sees Seokmin mouth the words _‘I love you.’_

 

**D+78**

 

“Hey,” Soonyoung begins with a smile already bordering on uneasy, “I didn’t have a clue what any of that research meant but you know I like listening to you talk about it anyway. I don’t really have any exciting engineering news for you, I’ve mainly been doing standard astronaut training day in day out.”

 

He’s sat cross-legged on the floor, camera on the bedside table with the bunk to the side of him and the door behind. He sighs in the silence that fills the room when he stops speaking, eyes downcast before they flicker back up to the lens and he inhales to begin a new sentence, only to halt and huff a laugh at the second sigh that escapes instead.

 

“I know you’re okay,” Soonyoung’s lips twitch into a smile at his words as if he’s trying to reassure himself, “And that I’ll see you again. I just haven’t been away from you for this long ever since we met...And I _know_ it’s obviously harder for you since you’re in damn _space_ but I miss you and I’m worried and I know hearing that will make you worry and that’s not what you need but—”

 

He cuts himself off with a groan at the back of his throat, chewing on the inside of his cheek and pursing his lips before continuing on.

 

“I miss you, but I’m doing okay. I’m sad because of you,” Soonyoung jokes, a slight smile gracing his features, “This is your fault...I love you, I just want to hear that you’re okay, still.”

 

He gives a final smile before reaching to stop the recording, sighing to himself again as he stands up and takes the device out of his room, down several corridors and flights of stairs to reach Wonwoo’s little office.

 

“You okay?” the technician asks almost immediately, noticing the camera at hand, “Is he okay?”

 

“I hope so,” Soonyoung replies vaguely with a strained smile, handing the camera over for Wonwoo to make the file transfer, “Please don’t watch that one.”

 

“I don’t watch any of them, Soonyoung,” he addresses clearly, setting the device down on his desk for now, “They’re private, not just yours and his but everyone’s.”

 

“Okay,” Soonyoung loiters, unfocused gaze wandering aimlessly about the room, and Wonwoo surveys him with perceptive eyes.

 

“Do you want to go to the control room?”

 

“ _Please_.”

 

Wonwoo smiles, leading them towards the centre of the HQ with ease, “You can just ask, you know? You could probably just go in there by yourself anyway and no one would really ask what you’re doing.”

 

“I know,” Soonyoung trails closely behind as if he doesn’t know his way around the establishment by now, “You _know_ how hopeless I am with computers and I just feel like I’m not really meant to be there.”

 

“You’re not really,” Wonwoo concurs, deciding not to tease the other about being technologically inept while heading up some stairs, “But it’s not like you’re forbidden from going in, you just don’t really have a reason to, except you actually _do_.”

 

“It’s not really an important reason.”

 

“It’s important to you,” Wonwoo declares, giving Soonyoung a disbelieving side-eye at his pessimism while opening the glass doors to the ever-busy control room, “And it’s not like you’re interrupting anyone.”

 

“Weren’t you busy?”

 

“Well yeah, but that’s beside the point.”

 

Wonwoo navigates to the correct workstation with ease and takes a seat, Soonyoung remaining standing behind him while he clicks around on the screen to bring the current data up, “Aries is still up there.”

 

Soonyoung leans forward to look at the figures littered across the display. They update periodically, a fact which had initially worried Soonyoung when he saw the distance travelled remain the same despite a constant speed being displayed, and so the frozen digits on the screen still don’t sit right with him. He is only pleased with the data once the update happens about thirty seconds after his eyes had laid upon the numbers.

 

“Happy?” Wonwoo asks now that Soonyoung has seen that the spaceship is indeed still in space, still intact and still on course for Mars.

 

“Happier.”

 

**D+108**

 

_“We’re halfway there!” Seokmin exclaims as soon as the recording starts, “I can’t believe how small Mars looks, but it has the same land mass as Earth? It’s weird. Don’t get me wrong though, it’s still massively terrifying.”_

 

Soonyoung smiles at the wondrous energy leaking out of the other, glad to see that he’s adapting to life in space more and more after each video.

 

_“There’s literally nothing this far away from Earth, I can’t remember the last time something came remotely near the ship and even when it did it was barely big enough for the sensors to detect.”_

 

Soonyoung shuffles around where he’s curled up on his sheets, shaking the tablet to get the video orientation correct.

 

_“It’s autumn back on Earth now, right? Could you film your next video outside? I’d like to see the trees.”_

 

The thought hadn’t even occurred to Soonyoung, eyebrows raising at the suggestion, but he quickly decides to take it on board for his next reply.

 

_“Unless everything’s really grey and depressing, then I don’t want to see it,” he laughs, hair floating in every which way, “God, I can’t wait till we land. It’s going to feel so nice to actually stand up. Oh! Also, it’s really weird being a science experiment, Jaehyun keeps taking all sorts of biological measurements of me.”_

 

Soonyoung shares a knowing expression with the recorded Seokmin, the latter insinuating something that the couple knew didn’t happen but liked to joke about nonetheless.

 

_“Not having gravity weighing you down for so long really messes up your body, but once we’re back on Mars it should get better, we hope,” he adds sheepishly, “Jaehyun thinks it should be a better transition than going from the ISS back to Earth because Mars’ gravity isn’t as strong so it won’t be such a sudden weight.”_

 

Soonyoung rolls over to sit up, holding the tablet over his lap while the final section of the video plays out.

 

_“Has training eased off for you yet? You’re due a break by now, surely?” an alert blares around Aries and Seokmin glances around in alarm, unstrapping himself quickly to float out of the hatch to his side, leaving the camera anchored in place._

 

He comes back after a minute, Soonyoung finds out while frantically skipping through the footage, and he looks both scared and relieved.

 

_“Uh, hi, again. There was a solar flare…”_

 

Soonyoung remembers the siren piercing through every corner of HQ, demanding everyone report to the control room at once, and he remembers how genuinely sick with worry he felt. Both Aries and Scorpio are built with systems meant to be able to shield from the massive radiation fallout from a solar flare, but there’s only so many times such an instance can be tested.

 

Everyone was scouring through the large amounts of data recorded and Soonyoung just stood there helplessly, too far out of his depth in the field to be of any use. They were looking for the occurence of a proton storm hitting the Earth after the eight minutes it would take the lightspeed particles to reach the planet, and they found one. There’s a chance it would hit Aries in the next two minutes.

 

_“We had to go to the main capsule, you know, code solar.”_

 

It shouldn’t reach them, someone had said without anywhere near enough evidence to support such a statement, prompting a debate that they didn’t have time for. Shouting started up in comms and Soonyoung caught sight of Wonwoo desperately trying to explain that radiation from the celestial event blocks long-range radio transmissions, and that it’s not guaranteed their message would ever reach Aries.

 

_“We only got word from HQ thirty seconds before it hit and not everyone made it into the main capsule,” Seokmin glances back towards the hatch with worry, “They seem to be okay, but you must know that by now because if something went wrong then you wouldn’t be receiving this message.”_

 

Everyone was fine, everything was fine, and Aries reported back once the storm passed. Their systems had worked but they recommended trying to reach the main capsule anyway, since that is the bulkiest of the capsules.

 

_Seokmin exhales heavily, smiling towards the end of his speech, “Well, that was scary and not really the best place to leave this message, but we’re definitely going to have to discuss what just happened, so I have to go...I love you, and I’ll be damned if a proton storm is the reason I never get to see you again, although that does sound like a pretty cool way to go.”_

 

Soonyoung shakes his head in amusement as Seokmin stops the recording.

 

**D+161**

 

_“Merry Christmas!” Seokmin bellows with a stunning smile, “I recorded this early and told Wonwoo to send it to you on Christmas because I’m smart like that.”_

 

Soonyoung smiles; he’d done the exact same.

 

_“I also told him to give you something after you’ve seen this, so you better go find him once you’re done watching.”_

 

Soonyoung’s eyebrows raise in slight intrigue.

 

_“It’s a gift, I know you know that so I may as well say it, and don’t feel bad about the fact that you can’t give me one.”_

 

“Bold assumption,” Soonyoung mutters to himself, having entrusted a parcel or two to Jaehyun long before liftoff.

 

_“I’ll say no more, but I hope you like it!”_

 

The message ends there and Soonyoung figures it’s because Seokmin knows that curiosity eats away at him fast, so he’ll want to run to Wonwoo at the earliest possible opportunity. 

 

Unfortunately for Soonyoung, not for Wonwoo, the latter mentioned had managed to secure Christmas day off to spend time with his family. Soonyoung had to text the other before being sent the item’s location and embarking on his journey to find the present.

 

It’s a short lived journey since he’s done the trip from his own room to Wonwoo’s office plenty of times, but that doesn’t quell his excitement any less. A small red box with a silver ribbon is buried in the drawer Wonwoo had specified and Soonyoung fishes it out and returns to his room before opening it.

 

It’s a silver ring, almost the exact same ring that he bought for Seokmin, aside from the fact that the centre jewel is a deep shade of purple rather than a smart royal blue.

 

Disbelieving laughter is shared across the solar system.

 

**D+192**

 

 _“I feel bad that I’m running out of things to say, but it’s hard talking_ at _someone,” Seokmin admits, floating around on camera this time instead of being strapped into a seat, “I’m sure you know what I mean. Mingyu malfunctioned the other day, thought I’m convinced he’s slowly becoming sentient, and he kept playing CLC’s ‘No’ on loop and now I have it stuck in my head, not that I’m complaining.”_

 

Soonyoung smiles as Seokmin begins to sing the chorus of the song while currently upside down, doing small dance movements in the confined space.

 

_“It’s catchy, even the Americans keep humming along to it, although they pretend to have it out for Yugyeom since it’s his computer the song was downloaded on,” Seokmin gasps suddenly, comically covering his mouth, “What if the Americans beat us to having sex on Mars?”_

 

Soonyoung can’t help but laugh at the genuine panic written across the other’s features as he pulls himself into the seat in front of the camera.

 

_“I won’t let them, that’s our life goal,” Seokmin nods, smiling to himself like he’s just thought of the world's funniest joke, “Commencing operation cockblock from here on out.”_

 

“Those poor Americans,” Soonyoung rolls his eyes.

 

**D+204**

 

_“We’re so nearly there now,” Seokmin is holding the camera this time, pointing it at himself and the red planet in the background, “I can’t believe I’m going to be stood on Mars in less than two weeks, it’s insane. Mingyu seems to be happy about having an actual physical form once we land, but it kinda worries me, I swear he’s becoming sentient....You should check on Minghao.”_

 

_“I just realised I never gave you a tour of Aries,” Seokmin begins to pull himself around the shuttle with a clear destination in mind, “Not that I really need to since it’s basically the same as Scorpio, but we’ve made it more and more like home as time’s gone on.”_

 

It does look very lived in, Soonyoung thinks as Seokmin points the camera at countless documents and photos tucked into straps lining the walls. He glides along some more and passes Yugyeom, the pair sharing a quick greeting before Seokmin continues on to stop at the exercise area.

 

_“I spend a lot of my time here,” he explains, holding onto a bar that is part of the complex machine to keep himself hovering in place, “We’ve been without gravity for so long that we’ve all lost a lot of muscle mass even though we’ve been exercising very regularly, so we’ve been exercising a lot more over the last few months...And yet I still can’t work this damn machine.”_

 

Soonyoung’s lips curl into a devious smile.

 

_“You helped design this,” Seokmin accuses, rightfully so, “Couldn’t you’ve made it more user-friendly? I feel like it’s going to take my arm off every time I fold it up, someone always has to help me.”_

 

A knock sounds at Soonyoung’s door so he pauses the video and gets up to answer it, finding Wonwoo stood on the other side and feeling an apprehensive energy almost immediately, “What’s wrong.”

 

“Absolutely do not freak out because there’s nothing really to freak out about,” Wonwoo ushers him in and shuts the door behind himself, shooing Soonyoung further into the room when the engineer stands dumbly in the way, “Transmissions aren’t getting through to Aries, there’s no response—”

 

“How’s that something to _not_ freak out about?”

 

“ _—Because_ , if you’d let me finish, Mingyu picked up on it before we lost contact, so they’ll be sending someone to do a spacewalk and check the aerial. It’s only something to worry about it we don’t hear back within the hour.”

 

Soonyoung gives his friend a blank look, “I could’ve gone on living my life a lot better without this knowledge.”

 

“You would've been told in briefing anyway, I just wanted to tell you before then so you didn’t panic in front of everyone, because that would be suspicious,” Wonwoo says pointedly, “Also, I doubt it’ll be Seokmin doing the walk anyway, he’s a chemist not an electrician.”

 

“Yeah, but he’s also an idiot and would be the first to volunteer himself.”

 

“That’s a very valid point,” Wonwoo turns back to the door, “They need me in comms right now but I just wanted to be the one to tell you. I’ll let you know when we have word back from them.”

 

“Bet you ₩20,000 that Seokmin is walking around on Aries as we speak.”

 

Wonwoo purses his lips and hesitates, as if he knows he’s on the wrong end of this bargain, “Deal.”

 

**D+210**

 

_“Come on,” Seokmin drawls with pleading eyes, “How could I not take the opportunity to get out of this ship for a while? Fixing the aerial was easy, I didn’t even really have to fix it I just sorta nudged it around until they told me it was angled correctly, and you won a bet from it! You can’t stay mad at me while I’m fifty million miles away, it’s not fair.”_

 

Soonyoung has to admit that there is some truth to his words.

 

_“It was scary though...Every time I turned around Mars was just there, but it’s the furthest from Earth anyone’s ever done a spacewalk apparently, so I guess I’ll make it into the history books even if I don’t get that first foot on Mars.”_

 

_“After this...This will be my last message to you until we land now, just because I’ve got a lot of stuff to prepare and go over before we get down there. That goes for all of us, actually,” Seokmin side glances the hatch to his left, “Everyone’s waiting to use the camera to get one last message out before then, so I better go before they start hounding me.”_

 

_“Don’t reply to this one!” he exclaims while reaching to stop the recording, “I’ll send you another after landing which isn’t too far away, so there’s just not much point. I love you, and I’ll still love you even when I’m on Mars.”_

 

Soonyoung doesn’t doubt that for a second.

 

**SOL-1**

 

_“We’re here! I’m stood up! On the ground!” Seokmin points the camera from his face to the floor, where he then proceeds to stamp his feet around in a little circle, slightly slower than Soonyoung would expect, “The gravity feels weird but also normal? Things fall slower than they’re supposed to but honestly I’m just happy to be on the ground.”_

 

_Seokmin walks across the room and swings the camera around to a little nook in the wall, “There’s my bed, that I can actually lie in now, how amazing is that?”_

 

_He backtracks and puts the camera down, pointing at himself sat at a table, “It kinda freaks me out that this whole base is made from Aries, like we’re just going to leave it all here when we leave...Only the necessary part of Aries to get back to Earth is still erect outside. Oh! Speaking of erect.”_

 

Soonyoung raises a brow in worried intrigue, not really sure where he wants that sentence to be leading, if he’s being honest.

 

_“I’ll have to get someone to edit this for me, I need to get changed.”_

 

Now Soonyoung is _really_ concerned, until the screen cuts to Seokmin in his spacesuit outside the habitat. He smiles wide in the large helmet.

 

_“I have something to show you.”_

 

It hits Soonyoung, what Seokmin is talking about, right as he turns the camera to the ground and there, in the Martian soil, lies the outline of a penis about the size of an average car.

 

_“For you,” Seokmin announces, clearly grinning around the words, “I did it while we were arranging the solar panels after we landed. Alright, cut back to me inside.”_

 

And so the clip does so, showing Seokmin back at the table again in the mostly white habitat, messy surfaces behind him while they are no doubt trying to settle in. Soonyoung catches a glimpse of the ring on Seokmin’s finger and smiles.

 

_“So, I hope you liked my penis,” he grins slyly before clapping once to punctuate a new sentence, “But I can’t believe you bought me a birthday present this far in advance, or well, made it for me.”_

 

_Seokmin dangles the USB keyring from a pointed finger before clasping it in his fist, “Thank you so much. It’s really thoughtful and only slightly narcissistic, so I’ll let you off.”_

 

Soonyoung had spent ages trying to think of something to buy the other that was both something he wanted and something small enough that Jaehyun could keep it hidden. There wasn’t an apparent choice for the engineer, as asking what Seokmin wants for his birthday barely a month _after_ his previous birthday would definitely raise suspicions. He would’ve asked Wonwoo for help but he wasn’t aware that Wonwoo knew about him and Seokmin at the time, so he’d ended up talking to Jaehyun even though he rarely talks to the biologist alone.

 

After coming to the conclusion that, with the addition of his imminent Christmas present, Seokmin had more than enough jewellery from the engineer, Jaehyun had suggested he gift the other something more personal that he can look at on lonely nights on Mars. Soonyoung clued on instantly to the nature of the suggestion, but he decided to go ahead with it in a more innocent manner.

 

He had managed to acquire a spare USB from Wonwoo without much enquiry into its purpose, and it had taken him longer than he’d like to admit to collate images from several different devices, but all that mattered was that he did it in the end and was happy with the result; a USB filled with countless pictures of them from over the years, something for Seokmin to look back through when he misses Soonyoung.

 

_“There’s a lot of things I forgot about on here from way back,” Seokmin begins to laugh, “Like that time you managed to get genuinely stuck in your space suit and ended up sat at lunch sulking because you couldn’t eat anything, and I, being the stellar boyfriend that I am, took a selfie with you to commemorate the occasion.”_

 

_“Oh speaking of, guess who got the first foot on Mars?” Seokmin picks up a phone and shows the screen to Soonyoung, where a video plays without sound, “All of us! We jumped out together so none of us know who hit the floor first, but you probably know that by now anyway. How is the reaction to our landing on Earth? Are there memes yet? Have you all had a drunken celebration yet? We have some ethanol we could dilute, I suppose they’d like me to look into that...”_

 

_“I’m better go now because I know you want to reply to me before the day’s over, poor Wonwoo,” Seokmin adds, thinking of how busy the technician will be today to send messages to and fro as fast as possible, “So I guess I’ll see you in a bit! Thanks again.”_

 

The video ends after Seokmin flashes the USB at the camera one last time and Soonyoung is left with a smile on his face, glad to see that everything has gone as well as it looked it had from the data they received during landing.

 

Soonyoung reaches for the camera while patting around on his bed to retrieve his phone, sliding off of the bed with the two devices to assume his usual set-up, camera on the bedside table with himself sat on the floor a few paces back, “Happy birthday! I’m glad you like the present, I spent ages trying to think of something you wanted or would need up in Mars but you took all of that stuff with you anyway, so in the end it was the USB, and it would’ve been much more inappropriate had Jaehyun had his way.”

 

“Everyone at HQ is celebrating as we speak and will probably be celebrating all day apart from the few unlucky ones who have to watch over the data you’re sending back in these initial phases. As for the rest of the world,” Soonyoung trails off, tapping on his phone which is out of frame, “There are many memes, but there’s one in particular that I think you should see. I don’t know if you intended for this to happen or not but…”

 

“Turns out the satellite images of the landing zone were very high definition,” Soonyoung shows the camera his phone screen and taps on it to correct the brightness, “Let’s just say your dick was on national news around the globe.”

 

**SOL-2**

 

_“I’m recording this right after watching your reply and honestly,” he pauses to wipe a joyful tear out of his eyes “The fact that the first image back from Mars is just a dick in the dust is so funny to me, not to be boastful. Just some poor analysts waiting to confirm that the base is fully established and functional and there’s just a dick there instead.”_

 

Soonyoung wishes that the higher-ups at HQ took the news of the global attention as well as Seokmin did.

 

_“I’ve got to tell the others,” Seokmin announces, picking the camera up to walk out of the lab and into the main habitat, “Jaehyun? You know the dick outside?”_

 

_“It’s on the news? Yeah, I heard.”_

 

_“Aw,” Seokmin pouts at not being the one to tell him, sitting down next to the other so he’s in frame, “How’d you know?”_

 

_“Word from home,” he holds up the tablet in his hands, amused, “Are you going to tell HQ it was you?”_

 

_“Absolutely not, and if any of you snitch on me I’ll push you out of the airlock in a tragic accident.”_

 

_“Guess I’m dying in space then,” another voice joins in from somewhere off camera and Soonyoung recognises it as Yugyeom._

 

_Seokmin visibly panics, “You told them it was me?”_

 

_“Perhaps I told Bambam it was you, but that doesn’t mean he’ll tell anyone else.”_

 

_“He definitely will,” Jaehyun whispers to Seokmin, adding fuel to the fire just because he can._

 

_“I’ll tell him not to?”_

 

_“You better,” Seokmin declares, “Your days are numbered if that information gets out.”_

 

_“Alright, alright,” Yugyeom begins another sentence as he presumably walks away, too far for the camera to catch his words._

 

_“The whole world definitely knows it was you by now,” Jaehyun remarks and Seokmin sighs before shrugging._

 

_“Well, at least they can’t fire me while I’m on Mars.”_

 

_“As if they’d fire you after all the publicity they’ve had,” Jaehyun points out, getting up and disappearing out of shot, “How often do you think satellite images are discussed worldwide? But you’ll definitely have a lengthy meeting about being professional when we get back to Earth.”_

 

_“I know,” Seokmin rolls his eyes, traipsing back across the room directing his speech at Soonyoung again, “Let me know how much trouble I’m in, okay? Or if they don’t know it’s me yet try and convince them that it must be some Martian civilisation telling us to get off of their land.”_

 

 _Jaehyun snorts in the background, following it with a small voice that’s full of mischief, “And why would a giant dick ever ward_ you _away?”_

 

Seokmin sets the camera down and Soonyoung hears a whack, a yelp and the sound of receding laughter, smiling bittersweet at being unable to see the comedic sequence that unfolded, no doubt _just_ out of frame.

 

**SOL-36**

 

_“Hi Soonyoung,” Seokmin is in the middle of the lab, surrounded by what appears to be glass walls while the camera is on a perch outside of the boxed-off centre, “I figured I’d show you some of the stuff I’ve been doing here but I can’t bring the camera in here because if it gets contaminated I’ll have to throw it outside...I can’t really wash a camera…”_

 

_“I don’t need to be wearing more than this, though,” Seokmin picks at the breast of his lab coat for emphasis, “I just can’t be moving the camera around and working.”_

 

_“I’m studying calcium perchlorate,” he walks back to the door of the container to make sure it’s sealed shut before putting some gloves on, approaching the centre of the room and holding a petri dish up in the direction of the camera._

 

Soonyoung thinks it looks like a box of dirt.

 

_“I need to extract it from this still but it’s very reactive and no one is allowed in the lab when I’m in here in case something goes wrong, which isn’t exactly encouraging.”_

 

Seokmin spends the majority of this video meticulously altering equipment and jotting things down as he goes along, talking to Soonyoung when he isn’t holding his breath in concentration.

 

_“Well, to be fair, there is a chance I could cause a fatal explosion, but I don’t think I have enough perchlorate for that?” Seokmin shrugs, “Either way the pressure lock is always on the door when I’m in here in case I blow the lab up, then at least I’m the only one who gets eviscerated or ejected into Mars to perish.”_

 

_“Unless the explosion is big enough to blow the door off entirely,” he adds, looking up pensively for a moment before looking back down the eyepiece of his microscope, “Then we’d all die from the depressurisation.”_

 

_Seokmin casts a sheepish smile to the camera, “This probably isn’t what you want to hear really, is it? Sorry, I’ll talk about something else...”_

 

_He goes silent for a while, trying to look back over the time between now and the last message he sent to Soonyoung, “Oh! Mingyu scared the shit out of me the other day. You know that the body he has is like, really weirdly lifelike? That in itself creeps me out, but anyway, the other day I was just going to sleep and I really felt like someone was behind me. I didn’t know what to do because if someone really was behind me and I turned around then what does that accomplish? But on the other hand what if whoever’s behind me gets me first, y’know?”_

 

_He spends an ample amount of time fishing around in the same petri dish with a pair of concentrated tweezers, “I decided, fuck it, and rolled over, and Mingyu was actually just stood there staring at me. I sat up so fast that I hit my head on Jaehyun’s bunk and nearly knocked myself out, Jaehyun actually woke up from the force of it. We still don’t know what he was doing there because when we asked him he didn’t respond and it turned out he wasn’t actually switched on.”_

 

_“We’ve been looking into his software to try find any bugs but nothing’s come up,” he makes a transfer from the petri dish to a microscope slide, “It hasn’t happened again since, though, but it terrified me. We reported it to HQ but haven’t heard back, so could you follow up on it for me before you respond to this?”_

 

_Seokmin gives a slight laugh when he realises he can’t stop the recording, “I can’t say goodbye up close because I need to clear all this up before I leave, but I’ll talk to you again soon!”_

 

Seokmin waves and then the video cuts off, but not before Soonyoung catches him once again discretely mouthing the words ‘ _I love you’,_ leading him to believe that there must be a seperate camera logging lab experiments.

 

Knowing that as much as he jokes about it, Seokmin would never make such a large mistake in an experiment, Soonyoung decides to impart on the mission he was asked to do before he records his reply; chase up the team looking into Mingyu’s apparent bug. 

 

Naturally, his quest starts in Wonwoo’s office.

 

“Have you heard anything about Mingyu?”

 

“I have actually,” Wonwoo regards the figure loitering in his open doorway with intrigue, “Why do you ask?”

 

Soonyoung leans on the frame, “Seokmin said he malfunctioned and they sent reports back but haven’t had a response, so he asked me to look into it.”

 

“I don’t know the ins and outs but, walk with me,” Wonwoo abandons his desk and leads the engineer along polished corridors, “They said something about a stack overflow caused by recursion, not that I know what that means.”

 

“I remember recursion,” Soonyoung practically groans, “I had to take some computing classes as part of my degree and when we learned about recursion I argued with my tutor for so long because it’s so pointless.”

 

“Care to explain what it is?” Wonwoo raises a brow as they arrive at an elevator, selecting the floor and coming to a lean against the iron rails.

 

“It’s where a function calls itself from within itself.”

 

Wonwoo blinks and squints slightly, eyebrows furrowing, “That does ring a bell, sort of.”

 

“Yeah, it’s pointless so I’m not surprised you forgot about it,” Soonyoung continues his case from years ago as they head towards the AI department, “Maybe it _does_ make your code a few lines shorter but at what cost? If the code doesn’t stop executing then this can happen.”

 

“Stack overflow?”

 

“Yeah, and it sucks. _Literally_ just use a while loop instead and save yourself the pain.”

 

“Some people like suffering,” Wonwoo states as they enter the technical suite, “Speaking of, can you see Joshua anywhere?”

 

Soonyoung rolls his eyes knowingly before scouring the room for the American machine learning engineer, spotting him pointing at someone’s monitor while they appear to be having a disagreement, “There.”

 

Wonwoo follows Soonyoung who leads them through the desks and around various mechanical components to reach the other. Joshua notices them and quickly concludes his debate with the desk worker before striding over, “What have you two done now?”

 

Soonyoung places a hand on his chest in mock offence, Wonwoo mimicking him to the side, “I can’t believe you have such little faith in us.”

 

“Aren’t we allowed to come visit our favourite American?” Wonwoo chimes, pretending to be hurt.

 

Joshua gives them a disbelieving stare and draws his lips into a line; the pair snap out of it while the three share a brief laugh.

 

“Really though, we’re here about Mingyu.”

 

“Don’t even get me _started_ ,” Joshua groans, pointedly raising his voice, “I’ve been arguing with the data scientists for days.”

 

“How come?” Wonwoo inquires, coming to a seated lean on a vacant desk.

 

“All the data we received back from Aries just doesn’t make sense. Mingyu has extra code that _we_ didn’t write,” he punctuates, defending all those who work on the software, “And it’s not even in a coding language that exists.”

 

“Just because you don’t know the language doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist?” Soonyoung attempts to point out and is immediately shut down by Joshua.

 

“No it literally doesn’t exist, no one has ever seen it before. We can’t post it anywhere and get a global audience because it’ll make us look bad, a team of highly trained computer scientists and not one of us knows this language? It’ll be detrimental to us as a company.”

 

“I understand that,” Soonyoung nods, “But why haven’t you reported back to Aries yet?”

 

“Yeah, what if one of them made changes to Mingyu’s code?” Wonwoo adds.

 

“We thought about that so we asked when they sent their initial report and they said no, all they’d done since landing was turn on the body we built for Mingyu and sync his memory to it.”

 

“So, there’s extra code in Mingyu’s software and you don’t know how it got there?” Soonyoung raises a brow in summary, now understanding why everyone in the tech department appears to be working double time.

 

“Yeah, you can see why that’s an issue.”

 

“Absolutely,” Wonwoo concurs, “What about Minghao? Does he have the extra code?”

 

Joshua appears to pause in place for a second, “Honestly, I haven’t even checked. I’ve been so busy interrogating everyone about Mingyu.”

 

“Might be a good idea to check?” Wonwoo suggests, “If it’s on Minghao too then you know for certain it’s someone here, since the Aries crew have never interacted with Minghao.”

 

“Remind me again why you’re stuck over in comms?” Joshua smiles, the pair traipsing behind him while he goes over to the server room where they are currently hosting Minghao, “I’d prefer you to be here.”

 

“It’s less stressful,” Wonwoo admits, “ _Much_ less actual software development for only a slightly lower wage. Why _aren’t_ you over at comms?”

 

“Please, we all know this department would be in shambles without me.”

 

“That’s true,” Soonyoung has to agree since despite Joshua being one of the youngest on the machine learning project, he is the most qualified by a landslide.

 

Joshua grins at the response before directing his speech at Wonwoo, “Really though, if you ever want to transfer I can put a good word in for you.”

 

“I’ll think about it,” Wonwoo concludes, the same thing he said last time he was offered a place in the department.

 

“Your loss,” Joshua shrugs before sitting at the main terminal for operating Minghao and speaking to the monitor while holding a button down, “Run a complete system scan for malware and errors, and show me a log of your maintenance updates.”

 

A progress bar pops up on the screen wordlessly while another window opens with the requested logs, displaying what was done, when it was done and who did it. Soonyoung and Wonwoo peek over Joshua’s shoulders as he scans over the document, “Nothing looks unusual...They’ve all been authorised by me, and the latest large scale update was almost a year ago since Minghao has been fully functional for as long as Mingyu has.”

 

“Surely you’ve done more since then?” Soonyoung asks.

 

“Of course we have. Minghao actually has a few extra features because we’ve continued to work on him since Aries launched,” Joshua scrolls down the extensive document and purses his lips, “Nothing has happened that hasn’t been scheduled.”

 

Wonwoo moves from behind the other to lean on the desk facing the pair, “Couldn’t someone have deleted the log?”

 

Joshua leans back in the chair to look up at him, “They could’ve, but there’s not that many people here who could outsmart Minghao without him sending a distress alert.”

 

Soonyoung’s eyebrows shoot up in surprise, “He does that?”

 

Joshua tilts his head to give the astronaut a disbelieving look, “You’ve worked with him for how many years and you didn’t know that?”

 

“I knew he did it if _we_ were in an emergency situation,” Soonyoung defends himself, “I didn’t know he did it it someone was threatening _him._ ”

 

“Well, he does,” Joshua turns back to the monitor to close the maintenance log and check the progress bar, finding it to be barely even started, “What good would the world’s best AI be if it couldn’t defend itself from hackers?”

 

“Good point,” Soonyoung backtracks and points back to the progress bar to shift focus from himself, “How long will this take?”

 

Joshua shrugs, “A few hours, I really don’t think we’re going to find anything here though.”

 

“Doesn’t hurt to look,” Wonwoo takes a seat at the next desk over, logging in with his own credentials, “Can you give me access to Minghao’s code?”

 

“Do you have any idea how much paper work I’d have to do if I did that? You have absolutely _no_ authorisation in this department.”

 

“But you can _give_ me authorisation,” Wonwoo probes, all smiles.

 

Joshua purses his lips before sliding over to Wonwoo’s desk, “Absolutely not. I’ll just log you in as me.”

 

“Won’t that log you out over there?”

 

“It shouldn’t,” Joshua enters his details and pushes himself back across to his own desk where Soonyoung still loiters, rocking back on his heels impatiently, “Don’t you have to go to training soon? You don’t have to wait here if you’re bored.”

 

“I need to reply to Seokmin first and he asked me to find out what was going on with the whole Mingyu situation.”

 

“Well there’s no need for you to waste your time here while we run tests on Minghao, and we’re still looking into Mingyu, so you can tell Seokmin that we’ve still got nothing conclusive but we are definitely working on it.”

 

“I’ll come get you if we find anything,” Wonwoo adds, clicking through directories to find the code he wants before his body visibly sags, “Why do you insist upon using the _ugliest_ programming languages in this department?”

 

“C++ is a _beautiful_ language and nothing you say can convince me otherwise.”

 

“Right,” Soonyoung announces pointedly, heading for the door, “I’ll leave you two to argue this to no avail, please tell me as soon as you find anything.”

 

“We will,” Wonwoo waves the engineer away before turning back to Joshua, “C++ is such an overcomplicated language and the IDE is horrendous, it gives me errors where there genuinely are no errors _all the time._ ”

 

Soonyoung rolls his eyes and walks out of the server room, hearing the tail end of Joshua insulting Wonwoo’s programming skills and the latter gasping in offence before the door swings closed behind him. He navigates back to his room without interruption and sits on the floor next to his bed, pulling the camera out of it’s drawer and setting it ahead before pressing record.

 

**SOL-37**

 

Just like Joshua had expected, they found absolutely nothing wrong with Minghao and ruled him out of their investigation, continuing to focus on Mingyu alone. The machine learning engineer had sent instructions up to the Aries crew on how to safely perform a full system reboot and was currently waiting to hear back from them. 

 

“Have you tried just _asking_ Minghao what’s wrong with Mingyu?” Soonyoung comments offhandedly, Wonwoo and Joshua turning to stare at him like he’s grown an extra head, “What? If we can analyse Mingyu then why can’t Minghao?”

 

Joshua sighs and slowly brings a hand up to massage his temples, “If this works I am going to be so pissed off that none of us thought to do that.”

 

“Sometimes it’s hard to see the simple solution if you know the intricacies,” Soonyoung shrugs in an attempt to console the other, slipping off of his perch on the desk to hold the button down and speak to the AI, “Minghao, do you know what’s wrong with Mingyu?”

 

There’s a delay that isn’t usually present due to the distance between the pair, but even so it’s only a few seconds of silence before the eerily human voice responds, “He is currently fully operational, there is nothing wrong with him.”

 

“Minghao,” Joshua takes over, looking at the myriad of physical servers and wires laid out around them, “There’s some unidentified code in Mingyu’s system and it’s made itself into a class. It’s established new functions that we can’t decipher, can you look at them?”

 

“I can,” Minghao responds and fans whir more audibly to cool the hardworking components down, “It will take some time, would you like me to notify you when it is done?”

 

“Yes, as soon as anything comes up,” Joshua affirms and Soonyoung lets go of the button, “Now we play the waiting game, again. It’ll take at least an hour for--”

 

“I found something.”

 

The three humans share a perplexed look at the interruption from the machine and Joshua holds the button down with slight apprehension, “What did you find?”

 

“Mingyu is in pain.”

 

“In _pain?_ ” Wonwoo repeats incredulously, “He’s a computer?”

 

Joshua waves a frantic hand at the other to silence him while he continues to communicate with Minghao, “What do you mean by that?”

 

“He needs assistance.”

 

“Minghao, I need you to show me what you’ve found,” Joshua elaborates and the encrypted code fills his monitor once again, “Minghao, I don’t understand this.”

 

Wordlessly, the zoom on the screen is massively decreased so much so that the three, now gathered around the monitor, can no longer see the individual letters. However, clear as day with the help of Minghao having adjusted the indents of each line, reads one word now made up of bold lines from thousands of scattered characters.

 

‘ **_HELP.’_ **

 

**SOL-43**

****

_“Hi,” Seokmin begins with an uneasy smile, lying on his back in his bunk and holding the camera above himself, “We’ve sent reports back to HQ but we’ve found nothing abnormal, and Mingyu hasn’t done anything strange ever since the first incident.”_

****

Soonyoung notices the hesitancy in Seokmin’s features before he continues to speak.

****

_“Everyone’s on edge, understandably, but they’re all accusing each other of being the one who changed the code. I think everyone’s just worried because we don’t know where it came from and it’s not exactly a comforting thought, that our AI can actually feel pain? No one really trusts Mingyu anymore, we are doing most things by ourselves or supervising him on his tasks.”_

****

_“I’m worried that something will go wrong because of everyone being suspicious of everything,” Seokmin has rolled onto his side now, facing the wall with the camera capturing his face and the main area of the habitat in the background, “Weirdly I think cabin fever has only just started to set in. On Aries we all at least had our own little module but here we’re all living on top of each other and can’t really avoid each other…”_

****

Seokmin trails off and Soonyoung can see why; Mingyu is approaching the chemist in a series of mechanical steps.

****

_“Mingyu?” Seokmin rolls onto his back to look up at the robot, “What do you want?”_

****

_Right as the machine gets to Seokmin he appears to completely shut down and the human jumps out of bed, camera in hand, to show the sight to Soonyoung, “This is what happened last time! When I tried to turn him on he was already on but clearly n—Ow.”_

****

A large spark struck Seokmin’s hand when he attempted to touch the robot and the camera promptly fell to the floor with a flurry of swear words, the commotion clearly drawing the attention of other crew members. Soonyoung grips the tablet in his hands with so much worry it might snap in half.

****

_“Seokmin?” Jaehyun’s distant voice draws nearer, “Are you okay?”_

****

_“Mingyu electrocuted me.”_

****

_“Let me see.”_

****

The few seconds of silence that follows makes Soonyoung gnaw at his lip.

****

_“That’s not normal…”_

****

Soonyoung wants to scream at them to pick the damn camera up.

****

_“Does it hurt?”_

****

_“It did at first...Now it just, tingles.”_

****

Finally, Jaehyun picks the camera up and points it at Seokmin’s outstretched hand, where the transmitted electricity appears to swim beneath the surface of his palm. Soonyoung furrows his brows at the sight and is just as perplexed as the pair on Mars.

****

_“It really doesn’t hurt?”_

****

_“No,” Seokmin’s fingers are shaking and his breath stutters when the blue light traverses up his arm through his veins, “Jaehyun, what’s going on?”_

****

_“I don’t know,” the biologist appears to take a step back out of fear and the electricity can be seen through the fabric of Seokmin’s shirt as it rolls over his shoulder and then shoots up his neck._

****

_Static fills the screen as Seokmin collapses and Jaehyun rushes to catch him._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please leave comments and let me know what you think and i will love you forever <3 i crave feedback it's been SO hard keeping this in my docs for so long hhhh 
> 
> kudos would be very much appreciated!! and part two will be out next week :D
> 
> ☆ [hmu on twitter! @xiiaeo](https://twitter.com/xiiaeo) ☆


	2. PART_TWO

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so this took me longer to finish than i expected but i hope this almost 20k chapter makes up for that and confuses you nonetheless!! <3

Soonyoung stares at the now black screen for what feels like a lifetime crushed into one second before he makes a mad dash to the office of the Head of the Aries mission, tablet in hand, only to barge in and find it empty. He storms to the conference rooms and is immediately apprehended by a very alert Wonwoo, who appears to have been waiting for his arrival, “You  _ cannot _ go in there.”

 

“I have a right to know what the fuck happened to my  _ boyfriend _ .”

 

“He’s  _ fine _ ,” Wonwoo insists, holding the other back by the shoulders, “We received the full report from Aries not long ago and everything is fine now. Jaehyun checked all his vitals and nothing is wrong.”

 

“He had a current  _ flowing around inside him _ ,” Soonyoung waves his arms around for emphasis, “That is not in any way normal. Why didn’t you come and get me as soon as you received the report?”

 

“I was called into a meeting to establish a real-time video call with the Aries crew,” Wonwoo explains in haste, “They’re currently discussing whether to shut Mingyu down or not, and after that they want you to show them the video.”

 

Soonyoung rolls his eyes in anger, “Why is seeing the video the last thing they care about?”

 

“They need to make sure everyone else is out of harm's way before they spend all their time figuring out what happened to Seokmin,” Wonwoo lets go of the other and leads him to the side of the corridor to talk in hushed tones, “I know you’re worried but you need to breathe for a minute. You can’t help Seokmin by demanding things or declaring that you’re a couple. He was on the real-time call and he said that he’s okay and will be in touch again tomorrow, so I wouldn’t reply to him today if I were you.”

 

Soonyoung inhales and sighs out a big gust of air, “That’s easy for you to say, wait till you see the video.”

 

Wonwoo gently takes the tablet to scour through the clip, “He doesn’t say anything inappropriate for the board to hear on the video, does he?”

 

“No, he’s too busy being  _ electrocuted _ and  _ collaspsing _ to profess his endless gay love for me,” Soonyoung throws his arms up and lets his hand slap against his thighs in exasperation, “I think they should come back.”

 

Wonwoo gawks at him, “Come back from Mars?”

 

The door to the meeting room opens before Soonyoung can respond and Joshua steps out, looking very frazzled and equally exhausted, but he perks up slightly on noticing Soonyoung’s presence, “Oh good, he’s here. We’re ready to watch the video now.”

 

Soonyoung shares a look with Wonwoo who voices, “I’m not needed in there but I’ll be waiting out here for you.”

 

“Why not?”

 

“I’m not Head of Comms,” he stretches his lips into a fine line, “Only the heads of each department are in there.”

 

“Come on,” Joshua, Head of Machine Learning, beckons the tracksuit clad astronaut into the room full of suited officials.

 

Soonyoung was almost certain that at least half of the occupancy of the room had the authority to fire him if they saw fit, but none of them seemed in a state to care even if he were to streak across the round table at which they sat. He had left his room immediately after watching the video, which he had done upon waking up, and as such his hair was in complete disarray but was surprisingly nothing compared to some in the room who appeared to have been running sweaty palms through their strands in a stress induced state.

 

“The video,” Joshua prompts quietly, taking the tablet from Soonyoung before leading the astronaut to take his seat for the time being while he connects the device to the big screen on the far wall.

 

Joshua begins to skip through the video to get to the point where Mingyu appears but is interrupted by the Head of the Aries mission, “There’s no need to skip it. It’s barely a few minutes long.”

 

Soonyoung interjects, “I don’t think it’s necessary to watch the beginning.”

 

The man regards him for a second before directing Joshua, “Play it from the start.”

 

Joshua does as told and Soonyoung bites the inside of his cheek. Silence hangs in the room as they all watch Seokmin detail how the Aries crew is falling apart before getting zapped by Mingyu and assisted by Jaehyun. When the camera finally shows the current moving around in the chemist’s hand everyone in the room leans closer to the screen in disbelief, bar Soonyoung who is clasping his hands together so hard that crescent moon shaped indentations will be left on the backs of his knuckles.

 

The video comes to an end with Seokmin’s collapse and overlapping questions fly from all directions, like a bunch of reporters fervently trying to interview each other.

 

“Was that actually electricity?”

 

“Is that one of Mingyu’s functions?”

 

“Why was he so calm?”

 

“How is he alive?”

 

“What the  _ fuck _ was that?”

 

“Is that how electricity flows on Mars?”

 

The President of the company stands up and silence promptly falls, “Soonyoung, why would you try to hide the current state of the Aries crew?”

 

“I wasn’t trying to hide it,” Soonyoung answers honestly, “I just think that that’s really not the main issue at the moment.”

 

He seems to easily accept this answer with an appreciative nod that settles Soonyoung’s nerves only slightly before he directs his speech elsewhere, “Joshua, does Mingyu have any kind of function resembling that?”

 

The named American stands behind his chair where Soonyoung sits and leans on its back, “He does not, and he is also not made up of an outer material that conducts electricity.”

 

“So there’s no possible cause for a spark?”

 

“None at all, and even if there were it definitely wouldn’t be from the arm where Seokmin tried to touch before getting electrocuted.”

 

“How many volts could Mingyu theoretically supply?”

 

Joshua ponders upon giving them the specifics but decides half the room are not likely to care for the technicalities, “More than enough to kill someone, but like I said it should  _ not _ conduct outside of his physical form.”

 

The President resumes his seat in the now ordered room before asking, “Do you think we should shut Mingyu down?”

 

“Absolutely not,” Joshua notices Soonyoung looking up at him in betrayal, “Mingyu synchronises all operations on Aries and keeps everything regulated. You could certainly disable his physical body but you cannot completely shut him down because, metaphorically speaking, he is the heart of Aries.”

 

“That will be done then,” he casts a glance over to the respective Heads of each engineering department and asks a question about electrical flow that ends up in a heated debate between the three, with some of the physicists getting involved.

 

“You can leave now, if you want,” Joshua murmurs low beside Soonyoung’s ear, “No one would mind since you’re not technically meant to be here.”

 

“I want to know what they’re doing about Seokmin.”

 

“I don’t think there’s anything they can do,” Joshua reveals truthfully, as gently as he can, “They’re going to check his vitals regularly and send all the data back to us. We’ve got to discuss some electrical experiments for them to do on Mars but we need to establish all the safety precautions they’ll have to take and Seokmin won’t be allowed to participate. There’s also been talk of letting him postpone his work for now just to make sure he’s actually okay.”

 

“Okay,” Soonyoug nods vacantly and stands up with an inaudible scrape of the chair legs, “I’ll leave.”

 

“I’ll escort—”

 

“It’s okay,” he assures, “You’re clearly needed here.”

 

It doesn’t take Soonyoung long to reach the door through which he entered and find Wonwoo still stood on the other side, where he then realises, “I left my tablet in there.”

 

Wonwoo surveys the bundle of concealed emotions with kind eyes and stretches his arms out in the start of a familiar embrace, “Come here.”

 

Soonyoung is gladly enveloped in the hug and grips onto the other, shoulders shaking as if on cue, “I’m so worried.”

 

“I know,” Wonwoo sighs softly, “I know. Let’s go back to your room?”

 

He receives a small nod into his shoulder, followed by a sniffle.

  
  


**SOL-44**

 

Soonyoung restlessly drifts in and out of eternity before a gentle knock forces his eyelids to peel back, feet slapping against the floor as he drags himself to the handle, “Morning?”

 

“I just wanted to give you this,” Wonwoo whispers, conscious of the others sleeping nearby, handing the tablet over along with a steaming mug, “Hot chocolate.”

 

Soonyoung could cry at the sight of the hot beverage, greatly accepting it between palms that seemed intent to never release the warm surface, “Thank you.”

 

“There’s no need to thank me,” Wonwoo steps into the room and sets the tablet down on Soonyoung’s bed, “I’m guessing you didn’t sleep well?”

 

“Barely slept at all,” Soonyoung sips the drink and sits at his cushioned desk chair, “What are you doing here so early?”

 

Wonwoo raises a brow at him, “It’s 8:30, I start at 9.”

 

Soonyoung’s eyes widen a fraction, “I honestly thought it was barely passing 6.”

 

“It’s been one of those nights then.”

 

“Absolutely,” the engineer’s breath ghosts over the mug in a plume of steam, “I just really need to see that he’s okay.”

 

“I’ll clock in early then?” Wonwoo gestures to the door, “Go see if we’ve received the transmissions yet? We should have.”

 

Soonyoung nods with an appreciative half smile, “Please.”

 

Wonwoo returns the motion and heads out, lingering in the doorway for a second longer than expected, “He’ll be okay.”

 

Soonyoung just nods again, sighing out in full capacity when the door swings to a close and he’s left alone in the dull room. Traipsing over to the bed and placing the mug down, he yanks the curtains open and squints at the morning light before retreating to the bottom bunk and curling up with the tablet.

 

He makes the executive decision to try drink the hot chocolate while lying on his side and is relieved to have not spilled any on his white sheets. After setting the mug down with a low clink, he unlocks the tablet and is immediately affronted by yesterday’s video, paused on the image of Seokmin’s outstretched hand, tainted with a foreign light.

 

Soonyoung watches the video from there onwards in the hopes of better understanding what happened, only to be left inevitably filled with concern and repeating the last few seconds endlessly until something catches his eyes. The static filling the screen didn’t appear to be due to a technical cause, but rather seemed to be emitted from Seokmin himself in the last few frames of footage.

 

An email alert successfully steals Soonyoung’s attention and he comes face to face with a more updated Seokmin.

 

_ “I’m alive,” he’s lying in bed again like last time, only now he faces out while the camera faces the wall, “I promise I’m fine, seriously. Look.” _

 

_ Seokmin films his arm and pulls the collar of his shirt over his shoulder, showing nothing but clear skin, “See? It didn’t even leave a mark and it didn’t hurt at all after the initial zap, but still, I won’t be going near Mingyu any time soon. We’ve secured his body in the vehicle bay and now he’s just sort of ever-present...which isn’t exactly comforting either. It’s also not really assuring that absolutely no one back home has ever seen anything like that happen before, but then again, no one has been electrocuted on Mars before.” _

 

Something seems out of place to Soonyoung but he easily passes it off as his own paranoia, not to mention how affected by the whole ordeal Seokmin must be even if he refuses to let it on. Soonyoung easily recognises the chemist’s habit of finding any logical reasoning necessary to eradicate what he deems to be an irrational concern.

 

_ “I don’t know what else to update you on...We’ve all kind of united against Mingyu now instead of being suspicious of each other, so I guess that’s good? Everyone’s being careful around me like I have the capacity to electrocute them at will but it’s kind of amusing.” _

 

_ “I wanted to speak to you on the call yesterday but I couldn’t ask for you specifically without an actual reason, and the board were busy making me do weird things anyway like seeing if I could absorb electricity from a laptop. It was weird all around but what would they have done if I actually did just suck the electricity up? They didn’t think that far ahead.” _

 

_ Seokmin pushes himself out of bed and paces across the habitat, holding the camera out in front of him so Soonyoung can see what’s ahead. He enters a code into a keypad and the door opens with a hiss, releasing the airtight lock and allowing them to peer in. Seokmin points the camera to the corner of what Soonyoung can now see is the vehicle bay, “Look, there he is. The meanie.” _

 

Soonyoung would be wildly unsettled by the image on the screen if not for Seokmin’s piteous whine. Mingyu was quite literally shoved into the far corner and chained into place with a lock much like a bicycle lock, only larger. His vacant eyes stare ahead, thankfully not in the direction of the camera, and he remains eerily still in the darkness.

 

_ Seokmin pulls the hatch to a wordless close, spinning the camera around to record himself as he navigates the habitat, “I don't really want to go in there alone, but I won’t have to for a while because everyone is insisting that I don’t do anything.” _

 

_ “For your own good,” chimes Jaehyun, coming into shot as Seokmin turns to frame the pair, “Hi Soonyoung. I promise he’s physically okay but I haven’t done a mental check yet.” _

 

_ “Hey!” Seokmin whacks the other in offence with no real malice, stifling a laugh at the remark before smiling at the camera for the first time since the video started, “There you go, confirmation from Mr.I Could’ve Gotten A PhD In Medicine I Just Didn’t Want To himself.” _

 

_ “That’s the truth!” _

 

_ Seokmin twirls around to leave before Jehyun can retaliate physically in some way, “Whatever helps you sleep at night, Masters.” _

 

_ “Get fucked, Doctor.” _

 

_ Seokmin turns his face out of view to look back at the other, but Soonyoung can picture the expression from his tone alone, “You offering?” _

 

_ “In your dreams, maybe.” _

 

_ “Shame,” Seokmin pouts playfully, leaving the conversation and the area to go back to his bunk, directing his speech at Soonyoung through the camera, “I actually had a serious talk with him the other day about threesomes. We both said we’d like to try it at least once for sure and then it was a bit awkward because we just stared at each other...but we’re fine now. I’m waiting for my love to come so we can fulfill our self-established prophecy.” _

 

Soonyoung rolls his eyes fondly and is pleased to see that Seokmin hasn’t been constantly wracked with worry like he himself has.

 

_ “I really miss you,” Seokmin declares while flopping back onto his crumpled sheets, “How long has it been now? Nine months, nearly? Since lift-off? That’s such a long time...Tell Wonwoo he has to give you a hug from me since I can’t do it myself, and tell me how you’re doing. I know you’ll be worried about the video and I’m sorry you had to see that while you can’t do anything to help, but I’m fine! So don’t worry!” _

 

_ “I’ll have more time to talk to you now since I’m basically barred from doing any research, so please update me on your life and the world. It’s so bizarre looking up at the sky and seeing Earth, I don’t think I’ll ever get used to it. It’s just a little bright speck in the sky, like looking at Venus from Earth, but I’m looking at Earth from Mars? Everything I know and love is on that little speck of light and it’s both humbling and terrifying.” _

 

Seokmin glances off to the side and appears to be scurtisinisg something blankly. He’s frozen in place for that long that Soonyoung furrows his brows and actually taps the screen to check that the video is still playing.

 

_ “Sorry,” he turns back to the camera, “Thought I saw something. Anyway, I’ll say goodbye here because this one has been quite long, and the longer the are the longer they take to send. No doubt you’ll get back to me by tomorrow night, today night for you. I love you and I promise I’m fine, so please stop worrying!” _

 

Soonyoung releases a breath he didn’t know he was holding when the screen fades to black, glancing away from the device and spotting his neglected mug. He scoops the porcelain up and takes an ambitious swig, only to grimace at the grittiness of the now cold beverage. 

 

The interaction with Jaehyun definitely eased Soonyoung’s nerves, but he was far from done worrying about Seokmin.

 

**SOL-86**

 

Radio silence from Mars following the quake value that put the richter scale to shame has Soonyoung feeling like the weight of the world rests in his stomach and is trying to roll up through his esophagus. His foot taps erratically against the lino flooring and he forces his knuckles to a loud crack, inaudible in the control room as everyone searches for a transmission from the red planet.

 

A typed message comes through while Soonyoung is in the middle of chewing his nails down to a fine nub, sent just over nine minutes ago.

 

**_H_PVGHL__ **

**_V_R14D234_ **

**_1402_I_ **

**_1802_H_ **

**_ARI_ **

 

Soonyoung has never been so relieved to see the letter H in his life. Their solar panels aren’t functioning, rover two and three are missing along with drone one and Jaehyun is injured, but Seokmin is healthy. The rest of the crew are unaccounted for and immediate assistance is being requested, but at least Seokmin is safe.

 

Another message comes through very soon after.

 

**_1802_HOSTAOUBF V_ **

 

Scattered murmurs fill the room at the unestablished mnemonic and Soonyoung’s stomach knots at the sight of the additional letters which undo any security he garnered from the once lonesome H. Comms have a discussion amongst themselves and type out a quick response, enquiring as to the whereabouts of the rest of the crew and the state of Jaehyun’s injury. 

 

A yell triumphs over the frantic conversations, “There’s been an aftershock!”

 

“No, that’s too far from the epicentre to be an aftershock, it’s a separate quake.”

 

The simulation map replaces the transmission log on the main screen and Soonyoung’s knees buckle when he recognises the crater at the heart of the disaster as the McLaughlin crater; Seokmin’s current home.

 

**SOL-90**

 

“You understand the risks of this mission?”

 

“I do.”

 

“You’re aware this may be a one-way trip?”

 

“I am.”

 

“Why are you so willing to risk your life?”

 

Soonyoung hesitates for a second, “I won’t leave my friends to die on Mars.”

 

“And if they’re already dead?”

 

“Then I’ll bring them home.”

 

**SOL-92**

 

“They will be living in fear if they’re living at all. If the rest of the crew is gone and if Jaehyun’s injury isn’t treatable then Seokmin will be in extreme isolation, are you aware of the effects of this?”

 

“Not entirely,” Soonyoung admits, paying close attention to every word.

 

“Best case scenario is that he ends up paranoid, depressed and anxious, having mood swings a lot. Worst case scenario is that he ends up having auditory and visual hallucinations  _ as well _ .”

 

“How’s that  _ so _ much worse?”

 

The psychologist raises a brow at him, “He’s essentially locked in a box on a currently inhabitable planet, all that has to happen is for him to have a hallucination of himself wearing a spacesuit and then walk outside only to die because he’s not actually wearing one. He’ll be a danger to himself and potentially you when you get there. He’ll have reduced mental capacity and very poor judgement.”

 

Soonyoung nods, lips slipping out from between his teeth, “Will me being there help him recover?”

 

“It’ll help with making him feel less alone but it won’t magically make the rest of the Aries crew appear. He’ll likely be in mourning or paranoid and trying to find them by any means necessary.”

 

“Is there anything I should do if I find him like this?”

 

“Keep your distance as closely as you can. You want him to know that you’re there and not going to leave but don’t let him get attached to you because it won’t be healthy in the long run. He’ll likely have formulated his own way of running the base and you shouldn’t interfere with his routines, if he has any, or make very drastic changes to the environment, you don’t need to make him more anxious by disrupting everything.”

 

Soonyoung has to ask, even if he doesn’t want to, “What do I do if he is having hallucinations?”

 

“Listen to him explain what he’s seeing or hearing and then let him know that they’re not real and can’t hurt him, or control him, it depends on what he tells you. Does he trust you?”

 

“Absolutely.”

 

“Then he should believe you.”

 

**SOL-108**

 

“You should stay on Mars for no longer than two days before returning. Your number one priority is yourself, followed by the Aries crew and then the data they’ve collected over the months. You must contact HQ every day via radio and typed transmissions to update us on your status. Scorpio has been fitted with multiple deep-space signal receivers in place of some of the rovers and sleep modules, should you receive a signal from Mars. Aries is miraculously still intact and your first point of call is to investigate the habitat for survivors. Is that understood?”

 

“Yes, Sir.”

 

**SOL- 202**

 

Soonyoung has been on track to Mars for an approaching three months and has yet to win a game of chess against the AI, “This isn’t fair.”

 

“You wanted to play,” Minghao states, securing the human in checkmate for the nth time, “I am programmed to beat you.”

 

“Yeah but you have to slip up  _ eventually _ .”

 

“I wouldn’t say I’m prone to error,” Minghao packs the remaining pieces into the box, “Would you like to play a different game?”

 

“No thanks, I’m good,” Soonyoung gives a small smile before floating away from the magnetic board and towards the main module. He pulls himself along with minimal effort and comes to a stop at the radio transmitter/receiver, typing on a miniature keyboard before speaking into a microphone, “This is 1506 on board Scorpio. We are still on course and have no other updates to report.”

 

He types a different string into the machine and sighs to compose himself before speaking again, “Seokmin, it’s me again. I don’t know if you’re getting these and just can’t reply or if I’m not getting your replies or if you’re not getting them at all, but I hope you are. It’s been months since I’ve heard anything from you...I just really hope you’re okay, I’ll be there sooner than you know it.”

 

Soonyoung lets go of the machine and wipes at his few tears, sniffle interrupted by Minghao’s robotic form appearing beside him, “He is more than a friend to you, is he not?”

 

“How would you know that?” Soonyoung rolls his eyes, “You can’t feel or comprehend emotion.”

 

“No, but I know people cry for the ones they love, and you cry for Seokmin every day.”

 

**SOL-211**

 

“It’s me again. I taught Minghao how to play  _ I spy _ but I can’t beat him, I’ll keep you updated.”

 

**SOL-223**

 

“1506. On course. Everything is as it should be. No signals from Mars detected.”

 

**SOL-235**

 

“I miss you so much and I just really want to hear from you again. You must be receiving these, why aren’t you responding?”

 

**SOL-267**

 

“1506. Everything is still fine.”

 

**SOL-273**

 

“I beat Minghao.”

 

**SOL-277**

 

“1506. Unidentified object detected a few hundred kilometres ahead of our current coordinates and we must change our flight path to avoid it.”

 

Soonyoung pulls himself back along the ship to get to the cockpit where Minghao is connected to the main terminal, “Do we know what it is yet?”

 

“Yes, it’s Aries.”

 

“ _ What? _ ”

 

Minghao shows a clear image of the ship that he’s managed to obtain and it is, without a doubt, the ship that the Aries crew are supposed to return in. Premature excitement bubbles inside Soonyoung, along with a deep dread, “What’s it’s velocity?”

 

“Zero.”

 

“ _ What?” _ Soonyoung all but yells yet again, heading back to radio out to HQ, “Minghao, update me through the main speaker system.”

 

_ “Okay.” _

 

Soonyoung punches in the numbers on the keyboard from pure muscle memory, “1506. We have visual on the Aries return shuttle. Requesting permission to dock.”

 

_ “I don’t think docking will be possible.” _

 

“Why not?”

 

_ “We don’t have enough distance between us to slow down anywhere near enough to dock safely. The most likely outcome is a crash.” _

 

“How likely?” Soonyoung asks, allowing the whole conversation to be transmitted back to HQ.

 

_ “99.99999976%” _

 

“Right,” the engineer punctuates, “Docking will not be possible but we will scan for signs of life. How could the velocity be zero unless something stopped the ship from moving?”

 

_ “It shouldn’t be possible for the ship to be completely stationary.” _

 

“How long till we pass it?”

 

_ “ETA six minutes and thirty-four seconds.” _

 

“Shit,” Soonyoung stops transmitting to HQ to rejoin Minghao, “We won’t get a response from Earth for about another eight. Can’t we slow down slightly?”

 

“The amount of fuel such a maneuver would take is not worth the small time gain,” Minghao supplies, “HQ would not advise you endanger yourself.”

 

“HQ sent me here to rescue the Aries crew, what if they’re all on that ship?”

 

“Then we may consider turning around. Until we know the circumstances aboard the ship I would advise that we stay on course.”

 

“You’re probably right,” Soonyoung sighs and begins to flick several switches, “Angle all receivers on that side of the ship to point at and track Aries as we pass.”

 

“Okay.”

 

“How can they be stationary?” Soonyoung utters to himself while heading away from the cockpit and towards the window closest to where Aries would pass, “Are you sure they’re stationary?”

 

“According to my calculations, they are completely stationary,” Minghao responds from behind the astronaut, having followed him in his physical form.

 

“But they  _ can’t _ be,” Soonyoung complains, “Even if they’re not accelerating they’d still be moving.”

 

“We don’t know if they are on the ship yet,” Minghao points out and Soonyoung gives him a scathing look, “They would’ve signalled to us.”

 

“Maybe they have and we missed it.”

 

“I don’t think we would miss—”

 

“Please just shut up, Minghao.”

 

Silence falls as they wait, staring out into a vast nothingness that demands a fear of the dark. Soonyoung knows there’s no point in him looking out because at their current relative speeds they will have soared past the ship in barely a fraction of a second, but he remains there anyway, and casts a glance at Minghao once the ship has flashed past, “What did you see?”

 

“No structural damage. No signs of life. No electrical or thermal traces.”

 

Soonyoung furrows his brows, “Signs of launch?”

 

“None.”

 

“Signs of having been forced to a stop?”

 

“None.”

 

“None,” Soonyoung repeats, running his hands up the side of his face to massage his temples, “That doesn’t make sense. Literally  _ nothing _ in space is stationary, is it?”

 

“Basically, no. Would you like the scientific explanation?”

 

“No. Just,” Soonyoung glances around at the metallic surfaces as if he’ll find simple solutions written there, “Just send the data back to Earth and try radio to Mars, course correct and then scan for any nearby objects.”

 

“Okay,” Minghao disappears down meandering tunnels to carry out his tasks, Soonyoung following until he turns off to get to the communication station.

 

“Alright, don’t think about it,” Soonyoung utters to himself while waiting for the response from comms, keys clicking while he ensures the aerials are aligned, “It’s fine. They’ll be fine. There will be an explanation.”

 

_ “Incoming transmission,” Minghao announces, a clear pause while he error-checks himself, “From Mars.” _

 

Soonyoung holds his breath with wide eyes as a voice filters through, cloaked in static and familiar, but not the one he was hoping for.

 

_ “I don’t have much time,” it’s Jaehyun, “Soonyoung, I listened to some of your messages and I know you miss Seokmin and believe me I do too, but you need to turn around now. I don’t know what happened to the others but when I made it back to the habitat I just—Him.” _

 

“Minghao, align all aerials to the crater.”

 

_ “What about the transmission from comms?” _

 

“Just do it,” Soonyoung snaps, glaring at the audio waveform on the screen in front of him with contempt.

 

_ “—Sneaking up—Hours.” _

 

“Minghao!” Soonyoung yells as if the android cares for noise level.

 

_ “Yes?” _

 

“Get a fucking move on!”

 

_ “He barely talks—does it’s in—Let me leave.” _

 

Soonyoung grips the edges of the keyboard so hard he hears the plastic creak in complaint, barely relaxing his grip when the display shows all aerials fully aligned in the right direction.

 

_ “He’s not the Seokmin we know, please please please just turn around. I’m begging you.” _

 

The waveform flatlines and Soonyoung feels his pulse beat like his heart’s in his head, swallows like his stomach’s in his throat and inhales like his lungs have been crushed flat, “Did you record that?”

 

_ “I did. Would you like me to send it to HQ?” _

 

Soonyoung hesitates before nodding, “Yeah.”

 

_ “We received the response from HQ regarding the Aries shuttle, would you like to listen to it?” _

 

“No, not now Minghao. I’m—” Soonyoung glances around in mild alarm, “I’m gonna be sick. Where can I be sick?”

 

“Are you unwell?”

 

“No,” Soonyoung’s eyes dart about the interior like he’s watching a pinball machine, breathing heavier as he rips a plastic pouch off the wall, yanks all the paper out of it and then refills it with his insides.

 

“You seem unwell,” Minghao’s physical form appears beside him, “Should I do a medical check?”

 

“I’m stressed,” Soonyoung huffs, holding the pouch tightly shut but keeping it near his mouth, “I’m fine.”

 

“You are not fine,” Minghao states wirelessly taking readings from the band on soonyoung’s wrist, “Your heart rate is 134 over 90. You’re hyperventilating.”

 

“I’m aware,” Soonyoung slurs between heaves, rolling his eyes in intended sarcasm only to end up lost in darkness.

 

**SOL-278**

 

His eyes blink to a bleary open and it takes quite some time for him to realise that he’s secured in his own sleep module and not just floating around the shuttle. He rubs at his eyes while undoing the loose strap around his waist, “Minghao?”

 

_ The response comes from through the speakers, not from the android form, “Yes?” _

 

“Did I pass out?” Soonyoung asks, looking around for the other as he glides along to the cockpit.

 

_ “You did. I determined the cause to be extreme emotional stress and anxiety.” _

 

“I could’ve told you that myself,” Soonyoung mumbles wryly, “I feel like shit.”

 

_ “HQ advised that you leave all operations to me until you’re stabilized.” _

 

“Yeah, fuck that,” Soonyoung arrives at the cockpit and slides into his seat next to Minghao, “I’m stable enough. What else did they say?”

 

“I’m not supposed to tell you.”

 

The astronaut raises a brow, “They  _ advised _ you not ordered you. Now I’m  _ telling _ you to report what they said.”

 

Minghao takes a second to compute the verbs, “They said we are to remain on course to Mars as turning back at this stage would be pointless. Now we know Jaehyun is alive we are to rescue him.”

 

Soonyoung furrows his brow, “And Seokmin?”

 

“We are to assume he is hostile. Capture or kill.”

 

“ _ What?!” _

 

“HQ did advise me to not tell you in case it causes you more stress.”

 

“They want me to fucking  _ kill him? _ ”

 

“If he tries to kill you, then yes,” Minghao observes Soonyoung’s body language for a second, a soft whirring sounds emitting from him as if he was breathing, “I should not have told you.”

 

“ _ Why _ would he  _ kill me? _ ” Soonyoung’s face contorts in confusion, muscles tensed in what will no doubt become a stress headache, and he sighs, rendered almost speechless while his lips quirk in disbelief, “I just don’t understand.” 

 

“It is just a precaution,” Minghao explains, “To keep you safe. You are first priority.”

 

“I don’t care what my priorities are right now, I will  _ not kill my own damn boyfriend _ .”

“They are not aware that he is your boyfriend.”

 

Soonyoung’s eyes widen in offence, “So if he was just a friend then it would be okay? I can’t kill people, hell Minghao I can’t even kill insects.”

 

“There are no insects on Mars,” Minghao replies, completely missing the point.

 

“I will not kill anyone,” Soonyoung declares, resolute, “There’s absolutely no way Seokmin would ever try to kill me. This whole conversation is ridiculous.”

 

“Jaehyun would not lie to you.”

 

“Jaehyun didn’t say that Seokmin tried to  _ murder him _ ,” Soonyoung points out while pulling up a transcription of the message they receicved, “He barely talks and he’s not the Seokmin we know, doesn’t that just sound like what the psychiatrist told me? About being paranoid and anxious?”

 

“I do not know what the psychiatrist said to you, but if Seokmin is suffering mentally then do you not think that Jaehyun would want us to get there sooner?”

 

“Maybe he’s paranoid too?” Soonyoung shrugs, desperately finding shreds of credibility, “They’re both isolated from everything, alone and scared, so maybe they’re both hallucinating? Or maybe Jaehyun is just interpreting things wrong.”

 

“Jaehyun knows that he would die if we turned around and left him there.”

 

“A perfectly healthy Jaehyun with his full mental capacity knows that, but we don’t know what state this Jaehyun is in. He was physically injured too, remember? In the message we got right after the quake.”

 

“I recall,” Minghao affirms after searching through his memory, “Our objective remains the same.”

 

Soonyoung rolls his eyes flippantly, “Attempt a rescue but prioritise myself, I know.”

 

“Kill if you must.”

 

“I won’t.”

 

“You have to if you need to.”

 

“There will be no need to.”

 

“But if there is—”

 

“Minghao,” he successfully interrupts the AI, “I don’t want you to say the word kill around me anymore.”

 

“It has been added to your muted words list.”

 

“Good,” Soonyoung pushes himself out of the chair and heads back to the communication centre, “Now establish a connection with HQ, we have a lot to talk about.”

 

**SOL-302**

 

“Seokmin, I don’t know if you’re getting this or not but there’s been a lot of really weird stuff happening and no one has any answers so if you could shed some light then that would be great,” Soonyoung stops to exhale deeply before continuing on, “We’re getting there, slowly, and still haven’t heard anything from your end since Jaehyun told us to turn around...I had a thought the other day, what if I’m the paranoid one? You and Jaehyun at least know what’s going on on Mars, or you at least know more than I do, but I’ve got absolutely no idea what’s going on up here, down there or back home and I’m scared.”

 

“HQ are tracking the Aries shuttle we passed and it’s still in the same place, which shouldn’t be possible. We don’t know how it launched but we’re hoping you do, and if you know how it came to be stationary then that would settle a lot of nerves.”

 

“I’ll see you soon, both of you, so please stay safe.”

 

Soonyoung ends his transmission and blinks his tears out, watching them float around in front of his eyes.

 

**SOL-332**

 

“We’re landing tomorrow,” Soonyoung smiles to himself, “A few days earlier than your birthday, but I don’t have a gift for you so I guess I’ll just have to be your present.”

 

The smile drops from his face like the slow descent of a drop of honey, gradual until it’s suddenly gone, “I keep telling myself that you’re okay but I don’t actually know that, you could be...dead, for all I know...But no you’re okay, you’re okay and I’m going to see you tomorrow when we land, and then we’re going to go home.”

 

**SOL-333**

 

“How close to the habitat can we risk landing?”

 

“No closer than a five kilometre radius. It is walkable but from there we will take the rover in order to bring supplies between Scorpio and the habitat and vice versa.”

 

“Narrow it down to three.”

 

“That is not advisable.”

 

“Did that sound like advice to you?” Soonyoung doesn’t even spare the AI a glance while he checks readings and turns dials, “I know what I’m doing, narrow it down to three.”

 

“Course correcting,” Minghao affirms, “Approaching atmosphere.”

 

“This is all you Minghao, but if you fuck it up I will take over.”

 

“Understood.”

 

Soonyoung remains strapped in his seat, manual control panel within less than an arm’s reach, feeling the pull of gravity as they breach the atmosphere. The heat shield does its best to absorb the massive amount of energy rocking the shuttle but that doesn’t stop the astronaut from feeling like he’s plummeting to his doom on a rickety old rollercoaster.

 

“Time of descent?” Soonyoung asks in a relatively calm tone, voice slightly louder than usual to ensure the AI picks up on it despite the background noise.

 

“Approximately six minutes,” Minghao announces, his physical form strapped in next to Soonyoung and seemingly staring vacantly ahead while he operates the controls from within the shuttle itself.

 

Soonyoung can feel his heart forcing blood through his veins right up to his fingertips which grip the armrests of his seat tightly, body bracing for impact throughout the whole descent. Nothing but dust fills their limited view of the surface and Soonyoung’s stomach drops, “Where is the habitat?”

 

“Not within our field of view. We will land facing away from it. We discussed this yesterday at 12:25, do you not remember?”

 

“No,” Soonyoung responds clearly and then utters in response, knowing that the other likely won’t hear the words, “There’s a lot of things I don’t remember at the minute.”

 

“We have entered a magnetic field.”

 

“What?” Soonyong panics, barely able to lean forward and look at the control panel due to the excessive force pushing him back, “Mars doesn’t have a magnetic field.”

 

Minghao’s response is delayed while he analyses the incoming data, “The origin appears to be from somewhere within the McLaughlin Crater.”

 

“Aries didn’t have that kind of equipment!” Soonyoung has to yell as the shaking of the shuttle increases, jerking him around uncomfortably, “The parachute.”

 

“Not yet,” Minghao decides, his voice loud and clear through various speakers.

 

“We’re nearly at a hundred kilometres, deploy it now!”

 

The shuttle sharply veers to the right and Soonyoung fights against the Gs to latch a hand on the manual steering wheel, cranking it back to the left and casting a strained side-eye at Minghao’s stagnant form, “What the fuck are you doing?” 

 

He knows there’s something wrong when the synthetic voice doesn’t respond; Minghao always responds even if he doesn’t understand the words spoken to him. Soonyoung stays in an awkwardly slanted position but manages to get both hands on the wheel, flipping a switch on the back to surrender automatic responses to manual controls. 

 

An alarm blares to tell him that they’re passing the critical zone for deploying the chute and he surveys the shaking dials and knobs with contempt, unable to read their little labels, “Minghao!”

 

The chute deploys, extra drag pressing Soonyoung even further into his seat and making his chest feel heavy, almost like his rib cage was about to cave in and puncture his organs, but their descent barely slows. Soonyoung struggles to reach for the reverse thrusters, switch  _ just  _ too far away until something jostles their ship to the side and gives him the final push he needed.

 

“Minghao,” the astronaut whines in despair, inaudible over the creaking shuttle, before raising his voice again, “What’s going on!?”

 

“Approaching d̶e̷s̷t̶i̷n̵a̴t̵i̸o̶n̶,” Minghao’s voice final filters through the speakers, shrouded in static.

 

“No fucking shit!” the astronaut yells, “Are you trying to kill us?”

 

“Not that I know of.”

 

“What the fuck does that mean?” Soonyoung shrieks in mild hysteria, “Can you land this thing or not?”

 

“I think it’s best if I don’t,” the voice fades off at the end in a distortion, almost as if the robot is slurring, “It’s not safe.”

 

“What do you mean it’s not safe!?” Soonyoung checks the digital readings in front of him and adjusts accordinly, “Minghao, I’m a fucking engineer not a pilot.”

 

“You were trained for this.”

 

“As a worst case scenario!”

 

“This appears to be the worst case.”

 

“Minghao!” Soonyoung snaps, voice rising pointedly on the expletive, “We’re gonna  _ fucking _ crash.”

 

He gets no response from humanity’s most advanced AI and grips the steering wheel tightly, body shaking along with the shuttle as he tries to slow their descent and tilt them into the appropriate landing position. It’s not working, their direction won’t change and Soonyoung can’t even veer upwards to abort the landing procedure despite his attempts.

 

The dusty ground is vastly approaching and Soonyoung notices a blinking blip on the radar and a phantom crackle of electricity on the control panel before promptly blacking out.

 

Minghao resumes control of the shuttle.

 

**━ᕕ━**

 

Soonyoung wakes up feeling like he should be in bed nursing a hangover, not barely strapped to a seat and viewing a dusted-over windscreen, beyond which sprawls a field of orange as far as the eye can see, “Minghao?”

 

His voice bounces around the shuttle in an otherwise eerie silence, echoes proving to further disorient the already confused astronaut. Soonyoung unclips the steel buckle holding him in place and falls out of the seat, slower than expected, landing on what would be the wall of the shuttle with a soft thud and a low groan.

 

He drags himself off of the newly established floor and presses at the now sideways control panel, earning nothing but the slight buzz of an electric shock in response. After shaking the feeling from his fingers, Soonyoung turns to walk deeper into the shuttle, feeling like a newborn deer taking its first steps on wobbly legs, having forgotten what gravity feels like.

 

“Minghao?”

 

Again no response befalls Soonyoung’s ears as he climbs through the small hatches he’s used to gliding through, navigating his way to the manual switch to reboot the entire vessel and all the while wondering why the AI would even let the power go off anyway. Minghao has his own failsafe system and should’ve at the very least uploaded himself back into his physical body in the event of a total shuttle power outage.

 

“Minghao!” Soonyoung yells this time and is surrounded by his own scared echoes.

 

He opts to climb into his spacesuit when he approaches it, locking the helmet in place tightly in case one of the capsules has been breached upon impact. Slowing down due to the additional weight on his shoulders, Soonyoung struggles to climb through the sideways shuttle, huffing after dropping into the next capsule, "Minghao?"

 

Soonyoung's hand shoots over his heart in shock when he finally gets a response through the comms system embedded in his helmet,  _ "Yes?" _

 

"Oh thank god," Soonyoung sighs in relief and comes to a rest against a metal wall, willing to forgive the AI for the harsh pounding of his heart, "What happened?"

 

_ "We landed on Mars." _

 

"How?" Soonyoung tries to breathe deeply to calm himself, closing his eyes in the already dark shuttle, "I passed out?"

 

_ "I landed Scorpio with Mingyu's assistance." _

 

"Mingyu's?" Soonyoung questions incredulously, "Don't interact with Mingyu."

 

_ "We would've c̴r̸a̶s̸h̶e̴d̴ if not for Mingyu." _

 

"I don't care. Do not interact with Mingyu again unless I tell you to."

 

_ "Understood." _

 

Soonyoung opens his eyes and releases a big puff of air, fogging up the front of his helmet, "Is there any structural damage to Scorpio?"

 

_ "None." _

 

“Why is there no power?" Soonyoung continues to plod along until he finally reaches the manual power switch, finding it flipped to off, "Did you turn the power off?"

 

_ "I don't know." _

 

"What?" Soonyoung stares at the switch with a creeping sense of dread, "You can't not know, you either did or you didn't."

 

_ "I can't recall." _

 

"You can't just not recall," Soonyoung stresses, sounding like he's in pain from worry, "Where are you? Where's your physical body?"

 

_ "I am waiting for you outside." _

 

"Outside? Outside the shuttle?"

 

_ "Yes." _

 

Soonyoung could cry with confusion as he drawls in anguish, "Why are you outside?"

 

_ "We need to enter A̶r̵i̷e̸s̶." _

 

Thoughts of Seokmin spiral into the astronaut's mind and he looks around the shuttle for a way out, brow furrowed in concern for how he got to where he is, safely on Mars in once piece, "Where is the nearest exit from my location?"

 

_ "Through the c̷a̷p̸s̴u̸l̷e̶ to your left there is an exit hatch o̶n̴ ̶t̷h̸e̸ right." _

 

Soonyoung zones in on his location and lets all other thoughts vacate his mind, leaving a dull headache in their wake. After clamouring through two more hatches, he finally deposits himself from the shuttle and onto Martian soil, falling to the dust in apparent slow motion due to the reduced gravity.

 

A hand stretches out to him from above and his first initial thought is to run before he realises that it's Minghao and that Minghao doesn't need to be in a spacesuit to survive the harsh atmosphere. He accepts the help up and is about to thank the AI before realising that he is stood right before the Aries base, Scorpio dug into the soil barely a few metres away from the habitat.

 

"We could've crashed into them," Soonyoung realises with horror and directs his wide-eyed speech at the AI, "Why would you attempt to land this close to them?"

 

"You said a three metre radius."

 

"Three kilometre radius! Kilometres!" Soonyoung takes slow steps away from the AI and towards the habitat, "Jesus, I really need to check your software when we get inside."

 

"Would you like me to show you to the entrance?"

 

"Be my guest," the astronaut gestures sarcastically to their destination, allowing the AI to walk past and lead the way, "Do you have the camera footage from Scorpio?"

 

"I do," Minghao stops, "Would you like to look at it now?"

 

"Inside," Soonyoung corrects and gestures for the AI to continue leading the way, "I need to know what happened but first I need to see if Seokmin and Jaehyun are okay, or if anyone else made it back to Aries."

 

"Understood."

 

Soonyoung strays away from stepping in Minghao's footsteps to walk closer to the base and rest a gloved hand on the exterior, sighing in relief when he could feel the slight vibrations caused by whirring machinery, "They still have power. That's good."

 

“The solar panels are dusted over.”

 

At Minghao’s observation the astronaut joins him in front of the patch of solar panels, lifting a hand to swipe some dust back to the ground and reveal a shiny solar cell without a scratch on it, “They haven’t been outside for a while. You’re supposed to clean the solar panels daily.”

 

“Would you like me to clean them for you?”

 

“No,” Soonyoung fixes the AI with a look he can’t compute before turning towards their desired destination, “Let’s just get inside the base, please.”

 

“Okay.”

 

Minghao continues to trek around the perimeter and comes to a calculated halt before the entrance, “I don’t have the access code in my memory.”

 

"It's the launch date of Aries," Soonyoung responds, allowing Minghao to enter the characters to unlock the pressurisation chamber before the pair step inside and seal the door shut behind themselves.

 

An apprehensive shiver sets Soonyoung’s hairs on end as they wait for the process to complete. He brushes past Minghao to stand before the final door between himself and Seokmin, breathing loud as it travels around inside his helmet and pulse points throbbing as his heart hammers against his rib cage.

 

A green hue fills the small space as the oxygen stops filtering in and Soonyoung pushes the door open at the first available moment, stepping into the habitat's main module while removing his helmet, "Seokmin?"

 

Soonyoung barely takes in the overturned state of the habitat as he struggles to stumble out of his spacesuit, noticing only one hanging up while five empty spaces remain. The door seals shut behind him with a tight hiss of air and with it comes an inquiry from Minghao, but Soonyoung doesn't hear it as he sets off around the base and nor does he care to, "Seokmin?"

 

All the doors to other modules are shut and the engineer approaches the laboratory entrance to key in the code, only to freeze at an all too familiar voice, "Soonyoung? Is that you?"

 

Soonyoung spins around, glancing around the room in a frenzy to find the source of the voice and eventually spots on a bundle of shuffling blankets on one of the lower bunks. Seokmin rolls away from the wall and emerges from his cocoon, baggy clothes hanging off a sagging frame as he takes wordless steps towards Soonyoung, the pair meeting in the middle in a tight embrace.

 

“I can’t believe you’re here,” Soonyoung murmurs into the fabric around Seokmin’s shoulder, “I missed you so much.”

 

“I can’t believe  _ you’re  _ here,” Seokmin emphasises, warm timbre vibrating throughout his body and into Soonyoung’s, “What are you doing on Mars?”

 

“Rescuing you?” Soonyoung pulls out of the embrace to look up at the face he’s been longing to see, arms still wrapped around the other’s torso, “I’ve been radioing you every day.”

 

Seokmin raises a brow, “I haven’t had any incoming transmissions since the quake.”

 

“But I spoke to Jaehyun a couple of months ago?”

 

Seokmin looks like he’s never heard the name in his life, “Jaehyun?”

 

“Jaehyun? Jung Jaehyun? The biologist?”

 

“Oh!” Seokmin’s eyes widen with realisation and then soften with a proud smile, “1402.”

 

“Yeah,” Soonyoung drawls in mild concern, looping his arms around Seokmin’s neck, “That’s his astronaut number...Are you feeling okay?”

 

“Better now that you’re here,” Seokmin replies in his usual playful tone and settles Soonyoung’s nerves momentarily with a gentle kiss, "1402 went out to search for the others."

 

"You let him go by himself?"

 

Seokmin nods, "If any of them find their way back here then I'm here waiting for them. 1402 insisted on going by himself."

 

Soonyoung's features contort in an uneasy scrunch, arms slipping from around Seokmin's neck to rest cautious palms on his shoulders, "Why do you keep calling him that?"

 

"That is his name?" Seokmin states with a questioning lilt.

 

"Then why do you not call me 1506?"

 

The simple question seems to jar Seokmin who furrows his brows and glances off to the side, looking utterly perplexed by his own methods, "I don't know. You're Soonyoung."

 

"He's Jaehyun," the engineer prompts gently, catching sight of the stationary Minghao lingering near the entrance, "Minghao, could you check his vitals?"

 

"No!" Seokmin yells, retching himself out of Soonyoung's loose embrace to flee to the other side of the module, "No robots!"

 

"Minghao stop!" Soonyoung shouts in response to the chaos and the AI halts in his steps, awaiting further instructions that do not come while Soonyoung approaches the wide-eyed other, "Seokmin? It's okay, he won't come near you."

 

Seokmin is pressed flat against a row of lockers, the harsh rise and fall of his chest visible despite the baggy shirt that almost hangs off one shoulder. His gaze is wild and wavering as if he's scanning for every viable escape route from a savage animal, not face to face with a harmless and obedient AI.

 

"Seokmin?" Soonyoung takes slow steps towards the other and stands in front of him, blocking Minghao from view as best as he can manage. He reaches a gentle hand out to take one of Seokmin's in his own, but a white spark flashes between their palms at the contact and Soonyoung hisses through his teeth in pain, instantly checking his hand to ensure nothing weird was happening beneath his skin, and thankfully finding nothing wrong.

 

Seokmin, however, didn't seem to be experiencing any kind of discomfort, but his eyes did soften in worry, "Are you okay?"

 

"Yeah? I think so?" Soonyoung flexes his fingers and then curls them into a tight fist, only a slight buzz remaining as a result of the event, "I thought you were okay after the first incident..."

 

"I am okay, that was just a normal electric shock. Static."

 

Soonyoung looks up into the eyes of the man he loves and is scared to realise that he can't tell what Seokmin is thinking or feeling at all. Maybe it's just because they've been apart for over a year, maybe Soonyoung's just paranoid or maybe it's something else, but Seokmin's usually expressive eyes are staring vacantly back into Soonyoung's, lips drawn to a thin line and breathing barely audible or visible despite the heaves of moments ago.

 

"Could  _ I _ check your vitals?"

 

The silence that follows has Soonyoung swallowing his saliva thickly, timidly reaching out to try and initiate a hand hold with the other, this time with success, "Do you trust me?"

 

Seokmin looks away from Soonyoung's face and down at their intertwined hands. He wraps his fingers around the smaller hand slotted into his own slowly, as if remembering and savouring something familiar, "Yes."

 

Soonyoung allows himself the relief of a slight smile, "Will you take me to the lab then?"

 

"Okay," Seokmin responds, this time without much thought, before leading Soonyoung across the module and through a large door after releasing the airlock, "This is the lab."

 

Soonyoung steps into the smaller module and tugs Seokmin along gently by the hand while he searches for Jaehyun's equipment, finding it quickly in a clearly labelled cabinet. He opens it and slides the drawers out methodically, finding the basic tools he needs and the only ones he knows how to use; a stethoscope and a blood pressure gauge.

 

"Can you take your shirt off for me?" Soonyoung asks, letting go of Seokmin's hand to get the equipment out and place it on the countertop, "When was the last time Jaehyun checked your vitals?"

 

Seokmin stands in silence, not making a move to remove the garment.

 

"Seokmin?"

 

"Did you hear that?" Seokmin asks, turning to look around the room suspiciously.

 

"Hear what?"

 

"The core."

 

Soonyoung pales in the absolute silence, "The core of what?"

 

"The planet," Seokmin states with a hint of confusion until he looks at Soonyoung with the most piteous gaze the engineer has ever seen, "You can't hear it."

 

"There's nothing to hear," Soonyoung chimes with confidence, belatedly remembering his very brief training sessions with regards to the Aries crew's mental health, "The only noises now are the machines in here and our voices."

 

"That's not true," Seokmin insists with a strong defiance, tone colder than Soonyoung has ever heard from the chemist before, "You just can't hear it."

 

"You said you trusted me, Seokmin, why would I lie to you?"

 

Again, a simple question jars the younger astronaut and he stands there as if buffering while searching within himself for the appropriate response, "You wouldn't."

 

"Are you really okay?" Soonyoung practically pleads for an answer yet doesn't give time for a response, "Can I please check your vitals?"

 

"Yes."

 

"Your shirt," Soonyoung reminds and feels a fraction of tension leak from his body when Seokmin removes it, only for that relief to be replaced with worry as he brings a hand up to rest it on Seokmin's chest, gently trailing it down over the bumps of his ribs, "You've lost so much weight..."

 

Seokmin shivers at the gentle touch, "I haven't been exercising."

 

"Why not?" Soonyoung prompts while arming himself with the stethoscope, desperate to continue what feels like the first normal conversation they've had since he entered Aries.

 

"You know how much I hate that machine you designed," Seokmin smiles in mischief and Soonyoung could cry at seeing the little crinkles appear around his eyes as they squint in glee.

 

"I do. I really do," Soonyoung's smile doesn't reach his eyes as he wraps caring arms around Seokmin's bare torso, "I'm so worried about you."

 

"Hey," Seokmin begins softly, returning the embrace, "There's nothing to be worried about. I'm fine and I'm sure you'll see that when you take my vitals."

 

The chemists warm tone seeks to replace Soonyoung's apprehension with solid reassurance, but in actuality only adds to his worry. This Seokmin and the Seokmin that greeted him upon arrival seem like wildly different people in terms of countenance, Soonyoung notes, pulling out of the embrace and raising the diaphragm of the stethoscope up, "Let me do that then."

 

"It's cold," Seokmin shivers when the metal touches his chest and Soonyoung smiles in response before relaxing his face in concentration, listening for a hopefully steady pulse.

 

It takes him a moment to find the right position, counting the beats and the gaps between them, before sighing in relief, "It's fine."

 

"Told you," Seokmin gives a slight smile, allowing Soonyoung to slip the blood pressure cuff around his bicep, "How was the flight?"

 

Soonyoung huffs a laugh at the normalcy of the question, phrased as if he hadn't just hopped from one planet to another, "Awful. A lot happened that I still don't understand."

 

"Like what?"

 

Soonyoung takes the reading from the dial on the cuff and removes it from Seokmin's arm after finding his blood pressure to be at a normal level, startled when he looks back up at the other's face and finds it once again completely void of emotion, "Like...Uh...Do you mind showing me where the bathroom is first? Then I'll tell you all about it."

 

"Okay."

 

Seokmin turns around efficiently and leads the way back out of the lab, releasing and then resealing the airlocked door and then doing the same for the much smaller bathroom door once Soonyoung was inside, "I'll wait here."

 

"You don't have to," Soonyoung smiles wryly at himself in the mirror, "Could you get me something to drink? I'll be out in a minute."

 

"Okay."

 

Soonyoung waits until Seokmin's footsteps have receded to a silence before bracing his hands on the edges of the plastic sink and letting his head hand forwards, deep breath escaping his lungs as a sweet form of relief. Jaehyun's fragmented message rings louder in his mind but he couldn't imagine abandoning Seokmin to death on Mars, even though there is definitely something wrong with him.

 

Steadying breaths bounce around the bathroom as Soonyoung lets his eyes slip shut, images of Seokmin's blank state flashing behind sealed eyelids compared to memories of the ever-smiling chemist back on Earth seek to make Soonyoung's stomach church, tears that he isn't willing to spill welling up in tightly closed eyes.

 

"Soonyoung?"

 

The astronaut's heart stops for a second until he recognises the tone as Minghao's, "Yes?"

 

"Are you okay? Your heart rate is i̴n̶c̵r̶e̷a̷s̸i̸n̷g̶ rapidly."

 

Soonyoung opens his eyes to look at the traitorous monitoring band around his left wrist, tears spilling down his cheeks as he looks up into the mirror to swiftly wipe at them, "I'm fine."

 

"If you need assistance I can provide it."

 

"Thank you," Soonyoung turns the tap on and watches the thin stream of water run for a second before washing his face with it, "Can you please put the camera footage from Scorpio onto the main computer here?"

 

"I can," Minghao responds, but does not make an audible move.

 

"Do it then," Soonyoung instructs, leaning on the sink again and staring at his reflection in the mirror, “Recalibrate your audio settings too, your voice keeps glitching even in short range.”

 

Minghao confirms his tasks before heading to carry it out, leaving Soonyoung in the silence of his own thoughts yet again. A mental list of all the tasks he needs to complete keeps forming and being broken over and over as more unexplainable things keep happening, meaning Soonyoung no longer knows how to order them in terms of priority. He needs to contact HQ to tell them he landed safely, but first he needs to find out how he actually landed. He needs to ask Seokmin about why the Aries launch vessel was out in space, but he needs to hear back from HQ to see if it has moved at all or is still stationary. He needs to find the source of the Martian magnetic field that shouldn't exist, but has absolutely no idea how to do that. He needs to speak to Jaehyun about what's going on with Seokmin, but Jaehyun is nowhere to be seen.

 

He wants to just lie down with Seokmin and talk the day away, but first he needs to assess his boyfriend's mental and physical condition before he can be content to be reunited with him.

 

Soonyoung leans over to flush the toilet and feigns washing his hands before emerging from the bathroom, glancing around to see Minghao connected to the main terminal and in the process of completing his upload. The engineer approaches the robot carefully and asks in a hushed tone, "Is there any way you can scan Seokmin without him knowing?"

 

"No," comes Minghao's immediate response, "You could put a monitoring band on him, but I cannot scan him without making contact."

 

"Do you have a spare one?"

 

"I do," Minghao opens a compartment where his left lung should be and takes a black band out, calibrating it instantly before handing it to the astronaut, "It is the same as yours. It constantly monitors blood pressure and heart rate, and can produce an ECG."

 

"Thank you," Soonyoung pockets the device, "Finish the upload and then start downloading all important data from the mission findings so far."

 

"Understood," Minghao closes his compartment and then continues to stare vacantly ahead, hand splayed out on the touch screen to maintain a constant data flow.

 

Soonyoung looks around at the seven hatches embedded in the walls of the main module, three of which he knows where they lead to from being there himself and one he knows from Seokmin showing him into the vehicle bay on one of his videos, but the remaining three are a mystery. Instead of trying to find Seokmin by opening every possible hatch, Soonyoung opts to sit at the round table in the centre of the room, fiddling with the black band in his hand until a thought directs his speech at Minghao, "Is the spacesuit I have the same as the ones the Aries crew took off with?"

 

"They are. There have been no upgrades made to the suit."

 

With this newfound knowledge, Soonyoung deposits the monitoring bracelet onto the table and walks over to where he abandoned his spacesuit to the cool flooring, "Where is the tracker located?"

 

"On the back above the oxygen tank."

 

Soonyoung flips the heavy suit over and lays it out, feeling along the sturdy fabric for any embedded system, "Is it removable?"

 

"Not without cutting the outer layer of the suit open, which I would not advise because there is a high chance of puncturing inner layers and rendering the suit no longer airtight."

 

"But it  _ can _ be removed?" Soonyoung emphasises to check and receives an affirmation from Minghao.

 

"Why would you want to remove it?"

 

"To try and find the others," Soonyoung continues to prod and pull at the fabric, trying to move the oxygen tank out of the way as best as he can, "If I know how it works then I can try to find a way to trace them better than the system we currently have, because that's clearly not working otherwise we'd know where they are. What is the range of the trackers?"

 

"Three-hundred kilometres. They were designed with the intention of tracking expeditions to the upper sections of the Mawrth Vallis."

 

"They can't be any further than that," Soonyoung muses, giving up looking with the suit strewn across his lap.

 

"They are most likely dead."

 

"By what cause?" Soonyoung demands to know, "Our suits have a MOXIE built-in, so oxygen isn't a worry."

 

"Food," Minghao states, "Water. It has been close to eight months since Scorpio launched."

 

"Maybe they took some with them."

 

"The rovers don't have enough storage space for—"

 

"Minghao this is  _ not  _ helping."

 

"How would you like me to help?"

 

"Please shut up."

 

"Okay."

 

A hatch door hisses to an open to the left of Soonyoung and out comes Seokmin, two mugs in hand and the soft smile gracing his features tainted with slight confusion, "What are you doing?"

 

"I was looking for my tracker to learn how it works," Soonyoung gets up with his suit and moves to hang it next to the one that remains on a rack of otherwise empty hooks, "Have you not received even a slight signal from any of them?"

 

"Nothing," Seokmin sets the mugs down on the table and takes a seat, picking up the foreign object on the surface, "What's this?"

 

"For you," Soonyoung smiles encouragingly, coming to sit next to the other and showing his own band, "I have one too."

 

Seokmin slides it onto his wrist while asking, "What's it for?"

 

"Monitoring your heart rate and blood pressure so I don't have to play doctor all the time."

 

Seokmin hums, a sly smile playing about his lips, "I wouldn't mind that."

 

Soonyoung grins, eyes softening as some of the tension leaves his body at the usual antics from the other making their reappearance, "Were you feeling okay earlier? When I got here? You were acting really odd."

 

"I just couldn't really believe you were here," Seokmin takes a swig of whatever beverage sits in the mugs he brought, "And I had just woken up."

 

"Why do you keep calling Jaehyun 1402?"

 

"It's just a running joke we have, you kind of had to be there for it to be funny though."

 

The answers are coming so easy that Soonyoung dares to push his luck, "And the planet? You said you heard it..."

 

"Yeah!" Seokmin exclaims with glee, "I couldn't for a while but after a few months I started to hear different pitches at different times, but always the same pitch at the same time of day. We've been documenting it but it seems that they occur very irregularly."

 

"So why can't I hear them?" Soonyoung inquires further, believing the tale of what appears to be a new discovery for now, "Surely you can't acclimatise to something that fast."

 

"We don't know," Seokmin shrugs, setting his own mug down to slide Soonyoung's closer to him, "Drink before it gets cold."

 

Hot chocolate soon finds its way into Soonyoung's mouth and he hums at the warm feeling that travels through his body with each sip, "You still have hot chocolate left?"

 

"We save it for special occasions," Seokmin winks, successfully chipping away at Soonyoung's scattered nerves once again. A comfortable silence settles around them for a moment, only the distant whirring of machinery, pointedly Minghao, keeping them company in the habitat.

 

It dawns on Soonyoung to ask with caution, "If it's okay to talk about, I'd like to know why you freaked out earlier when I asked Minghao to take your vitals?"

 

Seokmin's lips draw to a thin line as he swallows a final mouthful as if it pains him, "It's just since everything that happened with Mingyu, I don't really want to be around him or anything like him and Minghao is the exact same as him he just looks different."

 

"Sounds different too," Soonyoung adds in an attempt to be lighthearted, "But I understand that, all things considered. Where is Mingyu? Still in the vehicle bay?"

 

"That's what's worrying me..." Seokmin trails off, hands still around his empty mug while he stares at where it's contents used to be, "He's gone."

 

"Gone?"

 

"After the quake when I was looking for the others I had to go in there and he just wasn't there."

 

"Minghao?"

 

The AI turns to look at them and Soonyoung is glad that Seokmin has his back to Minghao, "You said that Mingyu helped you land Scorpio?"

 

"He did. He sent me some quantum data for our qubits and I inputted it accordingly while you were unconscious."

 

"And that somehow massively slowed us down and enabled us to land within metres of Aries without any structural damage to Aries or Scorpio, or any inhabitants?"

 

"Yes."

 

"You landed right outside?" Seokmin asks, noticeably more tense since Minghao joined the discussion.

 

"Yeah and I don't understand how," Soonyoung enjoys another mouthful of hot chocolate before getting up to walk over to Minghao, "Have you finished uploading the camera footage?"

 

"I have. Would you like to view it?"

 

"Yes, but only from when we entered the atmosphere onward."

 

Minghao wordlessly and motionlessly scours for the clip, hand still on the screen until he removes it while the desired media plays out for Soonyoung to see. The footage is eerily still with minimal shaking, angled from behind the pair as Minghao performs the majority of the landing procedures.

 

Soonyoung begins to skim through the footage, stopping at the point wherein he starts to move around on screen to try and take manual control of the shuttle after their sudden veer to the right. It's unclear what buttons he's pushing and what dials he's turning, but that doesn't matter, what does matter is what happens a split second before Soonyoung passes out.

 

"Pause it," the engineer commands, Minghao carrying out the request instantly, "Put it back ten seconds and play it at a quarter of the original speed from there."

 

The video plays back at the selected speed and Soonyoung watches with brows furrowed in confusion as the whole control console becomes filled with electricity before some of it enters his body and renders him unconscious. After that, the power surge seems to reboot Minghao as he finally does what he's programmed to do and miraculously lands the shuttle  _ right  _ next to the Aries habitat.

 

Soonyoung orders the video to be sped up past normal speed and doesn't discover much else, visibility through the windows of the cockpit is very low until an hour has passed after landing and the dust has finally settled.

 

"I was unconscious in the shuttle for an  _ hour? _ " Soonyoung turns to look at Seokmin, who had at some point walked over to peer over the engineer's shoulder at the screen, on the side furthest from Minghao, "Did you not feel the impact of the shuttle?"

 

"I was asleep, remember?"

 

"And you didn't wake up when a massive shuttle hit the ground basically right next to your head?" Soonyoung questions, waving his arms around for emphasis, "How did we not cause another quake hitting the ground at that speed?"

 

"It appears we slowed down substantially," Minghao remarks, analysing the system logs from aboard Scorpio, "I am not sure how."

 

"What speed did we touch down with?"

 

"Zero miles per hour. We came to a perfect stop."

 

"Like the Aries shuttle..." Soonyoung ponders the meaning of this revelation and stalks his way back to the central table, directing his speech at Seokmin, "Can I have a pen?"

 

The other astronaut finds and fetches a black whiteboard pen, knowing Soonyoung intends to write on the table, "What are you doing?"

 

"Figuring out the force needed to slow us to a complete stop when we were going at—What were we going at before I passed out?"

 

"Six thousand miles per hour," Minghao provides.

 

"That's already way too fast to feasibly slow down," Soonyoung draws himself a small diagram, indiscernible numbers jotted all around it.

 

Seokmin takes a seat at the table and leans on it, watching Soonyoung work with the numbers, "You're hot when you're smart."

 

"This is basic physics," Soonyoung rolls his eyes, "But thank you. I'm really glad you're back."

 

"I never went anywhere?"

 

Soonyoung cocks his head in disagreement, "I think you mentally clocked out a few times but that's okay, given everything. How do you feel?"

 

"Fine?"

 

"Mentally," Soonyoung specifies, "Haven't you been lonely? Scared?"

 

"Jaehyun has been with me most of the time."

 

"All your—" Soonyoung begins and cuts himself off, pen stilling with a sigh so he can look at the other, "All of your crew, your friends, bar Jaehyun, are missing. Aren't you worried?"

 

"Of course I am, but I can't stay constantly worried for months, I won't get anything done."

 

"Tell me about it," Soonyoung scoffs, elaborating at the eyebrow raise from Seokmin, "I've been worrying about you so much for months that I threw up a few times and have had constant headaches."

 

"Come here," Seokmin's expression softens to sadness so fast he looks like it pains him to think of Soonyoung in such a state, gently tugging the other by the arm to fall to a seated hug at his side, "You've got nothing to worry about anymore."

 

Sudden tears pour from Soonyoung's eyes silently as he brings his hands up to cover his face, Seokmin cradling him comfortingly against his side, "I have so much to worry about, there's just so much that doesn't make sense."

 

"One thing at a time," Seokmin soothes a hand up and down his lover's back, "Why don't you make a list?"

 

"I just don't know where to start," Soonyoung admits with a sigh, pent up emotions spilling out after verbalising his issue, "I'm sorry, you don't need this right now, I'm supposed to be helping you."

 

"You can't help me if you can't help yourself," Seokmin chides, sliding off of the bench to perch on one knee in front of Soonyoung, gently taking the other's hands away from his face, "Do you want me to get you some paper?"

 

"Please," Soonyoung nods, nestling into the fleeting touch Seokmin gives while wiping at his damp cheek before walking over to his bunk.

 

"I've been using this as a diary," Seokmin explains, producing a notebook from underneath sadly flat pillows, "So don't turn the pages over or I'll have to kill you."

 

Soonyoung feels like he should've been rolling his eyes, bemused at Seokmin's comment, but instead he feels a gripping sense of fear overtake him when the words were uttered with such a blank expression, vacant eyes trained on him, unblinking. Seokmin hands him the book and the speed with which a smile forms on his face does nothing but add to Soonyoung's fright, "Kidding, of course."

 

"Yeah...Right," Soonyoung timidly accepts the notebook, fight or flight responses cancelling each other out to see him freeze, "Thanks."

 

"Write that list," Seokmin encourages, wrapping an arm back around a tense Soonyoung, "What's wrong?"

 

"Just worried," Soonyoung flashes a fake smile before setting pen to paper and swiftly jotting down everything on his mind, painfully aware of Seokmin's gaze burning into his side profile. When his hand stills and he slips the cap back onto the pen, Seokmin peers at the paper closer to read the shorthand list out.

 

"Contact HQ. Aries shuttle. Aries crew. Magnetic field. Scorpio landing. Mingyu," Seokmin leaves a noticeable pause after reading the last word, "Why is Mingyu underlined so many times?"

 

"All of this started with him," Soonyoung theorises, still staring at the list and adding the words 'quake' and 'Jaehyun's message' to it as he continues, "So I think finding him is important."

 

"What is Jaehyun's message?"

 

"The transmission I told you I got from him, he said he'd listened to some of my transmissions to you so I thought you would've heard them too?"

 

Soonyoung turns to look at the other for the first time since he was handed the notebook, finding his lips drawn into a thin line of rebuttal, "I haven't heard anything from you since before the quake. What did he say to you?"

 

Every fibre of Soonyoung's body screams at him to evade the truth despite him never once lying to Seokmin in the past. Something about the forceful tone of the question and the attentive nature with Seokmin is waiting lead Soonyoung to present a calm facade, "He just told me he was so glad to hear that I was coming to rescue you both."

 

Cold sweat drips down the side of his neck, sneaking into the fabric of his shirt with sticky glee as his gaze flickers between Seokmin's unreadable eyes. It seems like he knows but is unwilling to reprimand Soonyoung for not giving him the truth, rather preferring that the engineer corrects himself before receiving a response. Soonyoung makes no such move to do so and Seokmin concedes at their impasse, "He didn't tell me he spoke to you, but I'm also glad that you're here to rescue us."

 

Soonyoung visibly sags in relief, passing it off as the end of a stretch while he wipes a hand along his neck through the sheen of sweat, "I'm glad I'm here too."

 

"Should we start on your list?" Seokmin prompts gently, demeanor once again completely different.

 

"Sure, but could you get me another hot chocolate first?" Soonyoung picks up the mug and swirls the remaining liquid around, "This'll be cold now."

 

"Of course," Seokmin smiles, taking both mugs and disappearing into the kitchen without so much as a second thought.

 

"Minghao," Soonyoung instantly calls out, "My chest hurts."

 

"Your heart rate is elevated again. I believe you're h̶a̵v̶i̷n̷g̸ a panic attack."

 

"Fantastic," Soonyoung breathes out.

 

"Would you like me to reassure you that everything is going to be okay?"

 

"Absolutely not because we have no fucking idea what's going on here," Soonyoung snaps without raising his voice, gripping onto the notebook still in his hands and becoming intrigued by it. He haphazardly flips through the already inked pages and comes to a random stop, stomach dropping at the scattered contents of the page, "What the fuck."

 

Seokmin's never been much of an artist and Soonyoung is struggling to place these swirls as mere doodles of a bored mind. They have a structure, some are repeated, they form distinct blocks like words and are intricately surrounded by smaller spirals, each drawn with careful precision yet swift speed as evident by the smudged ink.

 

He flips more pages. They're filled with the same foreign script from header to footer but occasionally there's a break in the madness, pages that are mostly blank save for a few words. The first one that Soonyoung comes across says the simple words 'I'm sorry' but that's more than enough for him to slam the book closed and toss it onto the table, stuttering out a barely audible plea for help, "Minghao."

 

"What do you need?" the AI appears at his side as fast as his machinery will allow him, ready to assist in any way possible.

 

"I don't know," Soonyoung turns around to grips onto Minghao's cold synthetic hand with both of his, heaving heavy breaths, "I think I'm gonna pass out."

 

"Would you like t̷̥̊̀o̴͉̓̊ lie down?"

 

"I don't know Minghao," Soonyoung attempts to yell in frustration but his voice betrays him, "Just do whatever you feel like you have to do."

 

The AI effortlessly picks him up and the whole room spins above him while he's carried across to the nearest vacant bunk and placed onto it with great care, “Is this better?”

 

"Minghao," Soonyoung starts, hands clasped together over his chest, picking at his nails through heavy breaths.

 

"Yes?"

 

The hissing release of an opening hatch makes Soonyoung breath hitch, caught at the back of his throat in a feeble attempt to be quiet like cornered prey. Minghao stares at him, waiting for further instructions, but as the shadow of Seokmin approaches Soonyoung forgets where he is, what he's doing and what's around him. All his attention is focused on Seokmin who prowls across the room with worry that doesn't reach his eyes, no longer caring about having a close proximity to the AI, "Soonyoung? What's wrong?"

 

"Fine," Soonyoung mumbles, the first half of the response too breathy to hear.

 

Minghao reaches out to him, a robotic hand over his quivering clasped ones, "He is shaking."

 

"Minghao," Soonyoung attempts to warn, to convey the pressing sense of dread and distrust he feels in one word.

 

"What's wrong?" Seokmin demands to know, setting down the mugs on the table before coming to hover over Minghao who is crouched next to the bunk, "Are you afraid?"

 

If you asked Soonyoung any time in the past what Seokmin's most attractive features are, his smile would definitely be floating around at the top of the list, all pearly teeth and kind eyes. What Soonyoung sees now are the same pearly teeth, exposed in a smile so tense it seems as though the skin of his cheeks could tear, but he doesn't have the same kind eyes, decorated with little crinkles that appear out of happiness. He stares at Soonyoung, eyes as wide as they physically can be and lips stretched thin, teeth bared.

 

The expression drops from his face just long enough for him to utter another phrase before springing back into his features, "You should be."

 

Soonyoung's pulse rings loud in his ears and pounds throughout his body, eyes rolling back as Minghao sounds an alarm and Seokmin lunges forward.

 

**━ᕕ━**

 

Soonyoung wakes up with a deep gasp, like he's been deprived of oxygen his whole life up until this moment. The room he's in is dark, the sheets are scratchy and someone's arm is locked around his waist; it's Seokmin's. Soonyoung bolts to the other side of the room with barely any visibility, running straight into the anchored down table with a hollow groan and continuing with a slight limp till he reaches a cool wall, feeling around for a way out.

 

"Soonyoung?"

 

He's slapping his hands against any surfaces they can reach, clattering objects to the floor and stumbling over the debris in the darkness, until Seokmin flips a light on.

 

"Soonyoung? What are you doing?"

 

"Stay away from me!" Soonyoung manages to yell after spinning around, pressing into the lockers behind him as hard as he can when Seokmin rolls out of bed to his feet, "I mean it!"

 

"Okay, okay," Seokmin heeds the warning, raising his hands in surrender and nodding his head in a gesture to his immobile feet, "I'm not moving, but please calm down."

 

Seokmin looks frightened, Soonyoung realises, afraid and concerned, "Where is Minghao?"

 

"In the vehicle bay with Mingyu where you left him?"

 

"You said Mingyu was missing," Soonyoung risks glancing around the room, finding everything to be where it was right before he passed out due to sheer fear.

 

"I never said that?" Seokmin furrows his brows, taking a step forward in confusion.

 

"Don't  _ fucking  _ move!" Soonyoung shouts, heart constricting at the shock on Seokmin's face and head pounding with stress, "Minghao!"

 

The door to the vehicle bay opens and out comes the AI, swiftly assessing the situation while Soonyoung scrambles over to him, "Your heart rate i̶̢̐̃ͅs̶̫̐ dangerously high, Soonyoung, please take some c̴̬̩͘a̴͓͇͝l̴̹̎͝ͅm̴̨̑ḯ̴̞̉n̶͇̽͑g̴̣̍͒ breaths."

 

"Show me your camera footage," the engineer demands, hands on Minghao's shoulders for purchase.

 

"In what time frame?"

 

"How long have I been unconscious?" Soonyoung asks the room, receiving a response from Seokmin who remains rooted to the spot.

 

"About an hour?"

 

"From two hours ago up till now," Soonyoung requests, following Minghao closely when he walks to pick up and transmit to the nearest available tablet.

 

_ The footage is shot through Minghao's eyes and begins with the Scorpio duo sat aboard the shuttle after landing on Mars. Soonyoung turns to Minghao and smiles, "We did it!" _

 

Soonyoung's whole face contorts in confusion, "What is this?"

 

"Footage of our landing."

 

"We didn't land like that," Soonyoung shakes his head, not willing to believe the events that play out on the glass screen, "That's not me. That didn't happen."

 

"Yes it did?" Seokmin piques, equally as confused and notably timid at contributing to the conversation, "You landed, came in here and then passed out suddenly. That's all that happened."

 

"No it isn't," Soonyoung continues to shake his head vehemently, taking the tablet from Minghao to scour through the recording and find that the events that transpire are exactly what Seokmin described, "This isn't what happened. What about the hot chocolate?"

 

Seokmin looks like the most confused person Soonyoung has ever seen in his life, lest someone were to hold a mirror up to him, "What hot chocolate? I can make you some, if you'd like?"

 

"What about the list?" Soonyoung continues to claw at scattered memories, "Minghao! You're scared of Minghao."

 

"No I'm not?" Seokmin responds with a slight nervous laugh, as if the thought is too preposterous to be fabricated, "Are you feeling okay?"

 

"Don't start that shit with me," Soonyoung dismisses, slamming the tablet into Minghao's chest before storming over to Seokmin's bed, searching under the pillows to find his diary, "Where is it?"

 

"Where's what?"

 

"Your diary. You let me write a list in it."

 

"Soonyoung, I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about," Seokmin attempts to peer into his eyes now that he stands closer, but he does not make a move, "I think you had a bad dream."

 

Soonyoung disregards the idea, trashing the sheets before walking to the main computer terminal, "It was  _ not  _ a dream."

 

He enters his credentials and is given access to the outside cameras of the habitat, spinning them all around until they come back to a rest, "Where's Scorpio?"

 

"Roughly ť̶̥̉w̶͙͌o̸̡̿ point five kilometres d̵͚̀ͅu̷̯͗̆ḙ̴͝ͅ north east," Minghao responds.

 

"No it's not!" Soonyoung almost sobs, bringing his hands up to wipe them over his face while letting himself slide down the wall to come to a seated slouch, "What's going on?"

 

"Soonyoung?"

 

The engineer almost gives himself whiplash with how fast he jerks his neck to look at the source of the low tone. Jaehyun stands in front of the now closing hatch, equipped with a lab coat, tablet and raised brow, "Are you okay?"

 

"I thought you were gone," Soonyoung utters lowly, frozen in place before springing to launch at the biologist, "The transmission! I got your transmission! I know what you mean now!"

 

"What transmission?" Jaehyun inquires, leaning away from Soonyoung as his personal space is invaded.

 

"About Seokmin! Telling me to turn around," Soonyoung smiles and nods as if to convince the other, shaking him by desperate grips on his biceps, " _ Please  _ tell me I'm not going crazy."

 

"Why would I tell you to turn around? You came here to rescue us..."

 

"What did you say about me?" Seokmin asks Jaehyun from where he still stands in place after initially startling Soonyoung.

 

"Nothing," Jaehyun shrugs, gently removing Soonyoung's hands while continuing, "I never sent any transmissions."

 

"Yes you did," Soonyoung insists with a sobbing staccato to his words, now gripping onto Jaehyun's garments, head hanging against the other's chest, "You did."

 

"We received nothing but r̷a̶d̸i̴o̶ ̸s̸i̴l̵e̶n̷c̷e̷ from Mars for our whole journey," Minghao adds unhelpfully.

 

"We got a transmission," Soonyoung insists, voice muffled into Jaehyun's chest as unsure arms wrap around his back, "A warning."

 

"Did he have a nightmare?" Jaehyun asks Seokmin as if Soonyoung can't hear all the words they exchange.

 

"I think so," Seokmin's concern leaks out through his response before he directs a gentle tone at his boyfriend, "Soonyoung? Can I come closer?"

 

Soonyoung pulls out of Jaehyun's hesitant embrace and shakes his head, wiping his stressed tears, "No. Leave me alone, both of you."

 

Jaehyun seems offended at the treatment while Seokmin just looks heartbroken, "S—"

 

"Get out," Soonyoung snaps, backing away from Jaehyun, "Both of you get out. You too Minghao, take them out with you."

 

"Soonyoung—" Jaehyun begins but is silenced by a resigned look from Seokmin, the pair allowing the AI to escort them through a hatch and into the kitchen, leaving Soonyoung alone in the main module.

 

He takes heavy steps across to the bed he had flung himself out of and perches on it, elbows on knees and head in hands. He screws his eyes shut before relaxing his face again with a heavy exhale, lips twisting in anger when a shadow streams across his feet, "I SAID GET...out?"

 

There's nothing there. There never was.

 

The hatch to the kitchen opens only slightly and Seokmin peers into the main module, "Are you okay? We heard shouting."

 

Soonyoung stares at him, absolutely despondent, hands lax in his lap and spine barely keeping him upright, "I think I'm going insane."

 

Seokmin's face softens in concern, like he's come across an abandoned puppy, too scared of him to let him help but to anxious to help itself, "You're not going insane, okay? You just had a really bad dream after the world's longest flight."

 

Déjà vu strikes Soonyoung in the gut at the similarly worded sentence to the one he heard earlier, or didn't hear, or dreamed about, "I don't know what to believe."

 

"Do you trust me?"

 

The silence that drags behind the question is suffocating.

 

"It was that bad, huh?" Seokmin asks in reference to the nightmare, slipping through the gap in the hatch and then closing it behind himself after uttering something to Jaehyun who remains in the kitchen, "Can I come closer to you now?"

 

Soonyoung releases a shaky sigh and then begins to breath heavier like he'd forgotten to regularly inhale and exhale for the last few minutes, "I don't know."

 

"Okay, that's fine," Seokmin nods encouragingly, taking slow steps until he reaches the table and takes a seat on the bench facing Soonyoung, "I'll stay here."

 

"Okay," Soonyoung nods, one corner of his lips quirking up in an unsure half smile before falling back down again.

 

"Do you want to tell me more about the dream?"

 

"How do you know if you're dreaming?"

 

Seokmin's lips part to give an answer but no sound comes out as he ponders for a moment, "I guess you don't really? But if things are happening that don't usually happen or couldn't happen in the waking world then you're dreaming?"

 

"So if I told you that Scorpio somehow landed within three metres of Aries...?"

 

"Sounds like a dream," Seokmin smiles in pity.

 

"And that the Aries shuttle was stationary in space? Way away from Mars?"

 

"Soonyoung," the chemist begins gently, pointing to the tablet secured to the wall next to the bunk, "Look at camera four."

 

The engineer leaves it on the wall and taps his way through the lock-screen, being instantly shown the camera feeds in a grid pattern. He presses the fourth one along and is presented with a real time image of the Aries shuttle, upright and stationed not too far from the habitat, "But..."

 

"Hey," Seokmin's voice is much closer and Soonyoung's feels hot breath ghost across the side of his neck. He doesn't dare move, but he doesn't have to. Seokmin shuffles further away on the bunk and completes the act of taking a seat next to the other, "Do you want to talk about it? It sounds like it really shook you up."

 

"You said you'd stay over there," Soonyoung accuses, turning his whole body to face Seokmin with the intention of keeping him in sight at all times from now on.

 

"I know," Seokmin begins to explain slowly, hands up in front of himself in his defence, "And I'm sorry I lied, but it's really paining me to see you so hurt."

 

"So you thought sneaking up on me would help?"

 

"I didn't mean to," Seokmin stresses, "You were just very invested in the screen."

 

"Oh? So now it's my fault?"

 

"No!" Seokmin exclaims in exasperation, "Look, I'm sorry. Please can I just give you a hug?"

 

Soonyoung scrutinises the other with sharp eyes, met only by the image of Seokmin's worried form and timidly outstretched hands readying up for the embrace. He feels so emotionally and mentally drained that it's making him physically exhausted too, a problem he's become accustomed to fixing by seeking comfort from Seokmin, "Okay."

 

"Okay?" Seokmin repeats with glee, "You're sure?"

 

Soonyoung's gaze roams around the other's features with hesitance, "Only if you smile for me."

 

"Smile?" Seokmin asks but does not push the question because it's such a simple request. The soft stretch of his lips is accompanied by the slight squint of kind eyes, decorated with their telltale crinkles. Soonyoung cries and the expression slips from his face, "What's wrong?"

 

"I just feel like I'm going crazy," Soonyoung draws his knees up to his chest and buries his head there, not minding when Seokmin envelops him in a warm embrace.

 

"You had a bad dream," Seokmin soothes in a warm tone, relieved to be allowed close to the other again, "You've been stressed and worried about us and everything for months, it's understandable."

 

"I guess," Soonyoung concedes, his own hands sneaking up to wipe at his unknowing tears, "But it all felt so real."

 

"Does this feel real?"

 

Seokmin is worried about him, Jaehyun is still carrying out experiments, Mingyu is still where Aries left him and Minghao is still fully functioning. The Aries shuttle is still outside the habitat, Scorpio landed a few kilometres away and everything is as it should be. That's when it hits Sooyoung, all the air knocked out of his lungs at the realisation, "This is the dream."

 

"What?"

 

"This is too perfect!" Soonyoung exclaims with a delighted smile, thoughts swimming in his eyes when he lifts his head to look at the other, "This is exactly what I want to be happening."

 

Seokmin gives him a blank look.

 

Soonyoung chuckles to himself, smoothing a hand over his hair, "God, I really do sound crazy now."

 

"No, you're not crazy," Seokmin drones in a tone far too monotonous for Soonyoung's liking, soft embrace turning into a locked hold, "You're a genius."

 

The sinister smile flashes into existence right as Soonyoung clocks out.

 

**━ᕕ━**

 

He wakes up with a gasp, heaving for oxygen and scrambling out of bed. He feels all over the nearby wall until light floods into the room and then he spins around to take in the surroundings. He's in the habitat, everything is still on the shelf and Seokmin is still in the bed, blinking the sleep out of his eyes in confusion, "Soonyoung?"

 

A shiver sets all his hairs on end as Seokmin rises to his feet and takes one heavy step forward to stand as close to him as possible, leaning around to whisper in his ear, "Why are you resisting?"

 

Soonyoung's voice comes out barely audible over the beating of his own heart, "What?"

 

A snarl and he's greeted by darkness.

 

**━ᕕ━**

 

He wakes up with a gasp, heaving for oxygen and scrambling out of bed to land himself in a heap on the floor, curled up with his fingers gripping his hair and palms covering his ears after the onslaught of Seokmin's voice, "Soonyoung?"

 

"I can't fucking do this anymore!" he yells to no one in particular, voice hoarse and breathing laboured, "Please just stop."

 

"Stop what?" Seokmin feigns innocence, turning the light on and peering down at the other for a split second before the engineer hauls himself up and bolts to the other side of the room.

 

"Don't come near me!" Soonyoung orders, seeking purchase on a latch handle as his knees nearly giving out in fear of the unknown.

 

"What's wrong?"

 

"Am I dead?" Soonyoung demands to know, "Is this limbo or something? Did we crash on Mars?"

 

"You're not dead," Seokmin answers with a questioning lilt to his voice, confused by the proposition, "You didn't crash either, you landed a few hours ago."

 

"Shut up," Soonyoung whines in complete despair, sliding down the hatch door to curl up against it, shoulders heaving with heavy breaths, "I can't deal with this I really just can't."

 

"Deal with what?" Seokmin inching closer in concern goes unnoticed by Soonyoung who has his head buried in his hands, "Did you have a nightmare?"

 

"You're my nightmare," Soonyoung snaps, the words breaking his already overworked heart as they leave his lips.

 

When he glances up he sees that Seokmin looks hurt by the statement, eyes wide and lips parted in shock where he stands frozen in place, yet it takes only a second for Soonyoung to go from feeling regretful to feeling absolutely terrified, "I can tell you how to end it."

 

Soonyoung reaches above his head to find the handle, simultaneously trying to both open the hatch and pull himself up on shaky legs, "Don't come near me."

 

"But I can help," Seokmin pouts, at one moment crestfallen at the way he's being treated and the next entirely stoic, "Let me help."

 

"Don't touch me," Soonyoung bites out, slipping through the barely opened door and then sealing it shut, frantically typing on the keyboard connected to the circuitry in an attempt to lock it from within, "Please please please please  _ please _ ."

 

"Soonyoung?"

 

He turns around hesitantly, the keyboard clattering to the ground as he sees where he is. The main module sprawls out in front of him, large table bolted down in the middle of the room, Seokmin just getting out of bed, "What are you doing?"

 

Soonyoung just stares at him with features tense in hopeless desperation, tears welling up in his eyes again.

 

"You shoudln't be out of bed," Seokmin chides, making his way over in calculated strides.

 

Soonyoung's tears spill over as a hatch door opens to the side, causing them both to look in the direction of what is the lab. Jaehyun walks out again, lab coat on and tablet in hand, but this time he looks straight at Soonyoung with a stern understanding to his words, "Wake up."

 

"What?"

 

"You need to wake up," Jaehyun insists, walking over but being blocked by Seokmin and his nervous laughter.

 

"He is awake? What chemicals have you been sniffing in there?"

 

"Soonyoung, listen to me," Jaehyun remains in place, where Seokmin intends to keep him, but he peers around the obstacle, "You need to wake up."

 

"Stop telling him what to do," Seokmin's tone is low in warning and Soonyoung is glad that he can only see the other from behind.

 

"Wake up?" the engineer questions in distress, "I've done that like ten times already."

 

"You know what's real, Soonyoung. Close your eyes and wake up."

 

**━ᕕ━**

 

Soonyoung wakes up with a gasp and an instant outcry of pain, attempting to shoot to a seated position only to be held gently in place against the floor by his shoulders, "Don't move."

 

Every muscle in his body feels like it's being stretched to the point of no return, surpassing a safe elastic limit to see him snap into a pile of bones, tendons and blood. The hands lift from his shoulders and it takes every minuscule section of his neck to tense before he can raise his head, allowing him to look down at his body and then immediately let his pounding skull drop back to the floor at the sight.

 

Jaehyun hovers over him, tentative hands teetering around the device lodged into Soonyoung's chest, glowing in a white light of intricate parts, "What the fuck?"

 

"Don't speak," Jaehyun instructs at the breathy tone, concentrated on the foreign object and halting for a moment after hearing a sickening crack, Soonyoung opening his mouth to scream in pain but no sound escapes, "This will hurt but I have to do it."

 

Jaehyun tugs on the device and Soonyoung's whole body shakes with pain, feeling like his veins are being scooped up and harvested from his chest like ivy pulled from a wall. He lifts a hand to lock a strong, pleading grip around Jaehyun's wrist, unable to breathe from the retching sensation.

 

"It's working," Jaehyun assures, still not willing to take his eyes off of the flashing device even when it finally releases it's grip on Soonyoung, several needle-like structures leaving the skin, thinly veiled in blood.

 

When not a single gram of the device is in contact with Soonyoung's body only then does it sag in relief, lungs demanding that he inhale to their max capacity and then proceed to heave to a soon to be steadier rhythm. He lifts his head up again, hands flying to where the device once was, expecting there to be a gaping whole in his chest and finding absolutely nothing but a slight tear in his shirt.

 

He rolls onto his side, still gasping for air, and curls into a shaking fetal position, flinching when Jaehyun slams the device on the ground before getting up and repeatedly stamping on it, soon resorting to jumping on it until it no longer emits any light. The biologist crouches back down next to Soonyoung and gently takes a hand from where it's curled against his chest, checking his heart rate and blood pressure on the bracelet, "Soonyoung, look at me."

 

Glassy eyes look towards Jaehyun, pleading for answers, help and finality, "Am I dreaming?"

 

Jaehyun shakes his head, "This is real. Seokmin lunging at you after you almost crashed and landed right next to Aries is real. Everything else wasn't real."

 

"Why should I believe you?" Soonyoung's voice shakes it's way to the other who tampers with the band to see the advanced settings.

 

"You don't have a choice," he states truthfully, "I sent you that transmission. I told you to turn around. Seokmin is absolutely insane and you have to leave right now."

 

"What about you?" Soonyoung questions with a grimace as Jaehyun hauls him to a seated position against a wall of glass; they're in the quarantined, middle section of the lab where Soonyoung recalls seeing Seokmin in many of the videos he sent back to Earth. Jaehyun doesn't look right, Soonyoung belatedly notices, able to see deep purple veins spiraling along his limbs while his skin has an odd translucency to it.

 

He skirts past the question, "Are you in pain?"

 

"I feel like I'm about to die," Soonyoung responds honestly, the hand Jaehyun wasn't toying with still gripping at the fabric of his shirt.

 

"You're panicking. Are you in physical pain?"

 

"My heart hurts."

 

"From panic," Jaehyun disregards and then prods at the other's torso, "I thought I cracked one of your ribs."

 

"I don't know," Soonyoung's chest still heaves heavily, unable to feel any pain he might have due to pure adrenaline coursing through his system, "Maybe?"

 

Jaehyun surveys his expression for the first time and then promptly gets up, "We have to get out of here."

 

The red light around the keypad leads Soonyoung to believe that won't be happening, "It's locked."

 

"Come on," Jaehyun helps Soonyoung to his feet and keeps the older astronaut against the wall in support, glancing at the bracelet again, "Are you okay?"

 

Soonyoung appears stunned at the question, drained of emotion, filled with fear and pulse thrumming in his ears, "I don't know."

 

"You're fine," Jaehyun decides, letting Soonyoung steady himself in a stagger when he leaves the engineer limp over and type the pin code in, the lock beeping angrily at him in response. He lets his hand hover in front of the keypad for a second before a green light of confirmation shines through, lock disengaging with a hiss, "Come on."

 

"How did you do that?" Soonyoung questions, pressing himself against the glass in distrust but too weak to resist when Jaehyun drags him along by hooking an arm over his shoulders.

 

"I don't have time to explain."

 

Jaehyun stops at the lab's hatch door to check the camera feed on the screen to the left, "He's not here."

 

Soonyoung perks up in a twisted mixture of hope and despair, "Seokmin?"

 

Jaehyun doesn't answer, opening the hatch and leading them out into the main module before immediately heading to the one remaining spacesuit with a look of resignation, "I'll help you into it."

 

"What about you?" Soonyoung glances around the module, waiting for any one of the hatches to open and reveal a sadistically grinning Seokmin.

 

"It's too late for me," Jaehyun sets Soonyoung against the wall, limping over to start undoing the various different sections of the suit.

 

Soonyoung wants to ask if the other is okay but it's clear that he isn't, he wants to ask what's going on but he doesn't know where to start and he wants to give up but Jaehyun seems to sense this desire, "I didn't take that thing off of you, risking it attaching to me again, for you to  _ not  _ manage to get off of this hellish planet."

 

"I don't know what to do," Soonyoung almost sobs, desperation and distrust evident in his voice.

 

Jaehyun takes a few strides to read the other and crouches down, the lower half of the suit in hand, "Lift your leg."

 

"Tell me what's going on," Soonyoung demands, allowing Jaehyun to help him shimmy his legs into place, "What happened to Seokmin?"

 

"I don't know."

 

"Don't lie to me, Jaehyun, please."

 

"I don't know  _ enough _ ," Jaehyun corrects himself, leading them over to where the top half of the suit remains secured against the wall, "Get in."

 

Soonyoung crouches to duck under the suit, legs giving out as Jaehyun catches him in place, "I can't do this."

 

"You don't have a choice," Jaehyun states calmly, panic entering his gaze when the pressurisation chamber begins to hum in activity, "Get the fuck up."

 

Soonyoung does as told, fear surging him onward just as much as it's dragging him down, "Is that him?"

 

Jaehyun doesn't answer, checking the latches that connect the helmet to the torso before securing the torso to the bottoms as fast as he possibly can, "Don't move at all."

 

" _ Jaehyun _ ."

 

"Put your visor down," he instructs, reaching up to do it himself anyway and now unable to see the engineer, "As soon as you're the only one in the room I need you to leave."

 

"What about you? And Seokmin?"

 

"That's  _ not  _ Seokmin," Jaehyun stresses, somehow staring past his own orange reflection and straight at Soonyoung's eyes, fingers blindly ensuring the two parts of the space suit are fully connected, "Don't interact with him or Mingyu or Minghao."

 

"What about you?"

 

Jaehyun gives the most resigned smile Soonyoung has ever seen, "I already escaped once but didn’t get far enough."

 

Soonyoung's eyes widen, "Was the Aries shuttle launch you? But then how are you here?"

 

An eerie silence descends on the room as the pressurisation chamber winds down, green light switching on above the hatch. Jaehyun takes careful steps away from Soonyoung towards the centre of the room, clearly mouthing, "Don't move."

 

Soonyoung's blood runs cold when Seokmin enters the main module in slow, calculated strides toward Jaehyun, the latter wordlessly helping him out of the confining space suit, helmet first, "Why are you out here?"

 

"He was screaming," Jaehyun responds cryptically but it appears the chemist understands him, lifting his arms to allow access to where the two bulky parts of the suit connect at the waist, "Where did you go?"

 

Soonyoung swallows as silently as possible, mouth dry and throat scratchy, heart throbbing painfully hard when Seokmin turns to stare straight at him, pacing towards the supposedly empty suit and coming to a stop against the wall next to him. Soonyoung steadily releases a large exhale through circled lips, realising that Seokmin was positioning himself on the hook so that Jaehyun could help him out of the suit easier, "That is not your concern."

 

A crackle of electricity buzzes around Seokmin when he emerges from under the suit torso, Jaehyun not phased in the slightest while Soonyoung's stomach churns, nausea accompanied by an involuntary pang of worry.

 

"Where is 1506?"

 

"In the lab."

 

"Is the conversion complete?" Seokmin asks, heading over to the relevant hatch with Jaehyun tailing him, "He was doing well."

 

"When you left he began to resist," Jaehyun opens the hatch, again without touching the key pad, and casts one final glance at Soonyoung before sealing himself in the lab with Seokmin.

 

Soonyoung struggles to hoist himself off of the hooks, but once he does he makes a beeline for the pressurisation chamber, clunky suit not aiding him in the slightest as he tries to open the hatch, only to find it looked with a pin he does not know, "Come  _ on _ ."

 

He tries the launch date of Aries, what the pin should be, but to no avail. He tries 1802 and 1402 before racking his brain for ideas, staring at the digits in sorrow as he tires 1506 and gains instant access. He steps into the chamber and locks the hatch again, the hissing of air filling the space around him in a bleak white noise before it is interrupted by a bang on the habitat-side.

 

Soonyoung steps away from the hatch and turns toward the exit, entering the same code and waiting for the procedure to complete before he is allowed to enter the Martian atmosphere. He has to pivot in order to see the hatch he entered through again, now with a large dent in it, getting larger by the second.

 

When the green hue fills the chamber, Soonyoung exits the habitat and could cry at the sight of the Scorpio shuttle waiting mere metres away. He strides across the dust and drags himself up onto the metal exterior with less resistance than expected, frantically turning around in search of a hatch that can be opened from the outside.

 

A hand latches onto his wrist right as he spots one such hatch, followed by a distorted voice filtering in through the comms in his helmet, sounding like it's surrounded by an army of others, "T̸̠̏̂a̶̠̯͝k̸̫̍̑e̸̛̹͙ ̵̳̉m̸̗̙͊̓ḛ̸̓ ̶̪̚w̶̱͈̄̕ỉ̵̪̦͊t̶̜̘̉̍h̵̭͎͑͆ ̷̖̘̏y̵̻̻̔o̴̳̔̐ụ̵̡̿͘."

 

Soonyoung yanks his arm forward and sends the other flying ahead to land in a scrap heap near his desired hatch, "Minghao?"

 

The AI is more missing than he is present, wires exposed and sheets of metal bent off at dangerous angles, charred in some places and shredded in others, "P̴̳̑̐ḻ̶̓̿ë̶̮́̀ā̵̞͔̀s̸̪̠̏e̶̪͌̎.̵̄͜."

 

Soonyoung stalks closer to the robot that kept him company for months, Jaehyun's advice taking precedence at the forefront of his mind as he approaches, "What happened to you?"

 

“S̵̠̎ȅ̴̉͜o̸͇̔͊k̶̙̥͒͛m̶̨͐i̶̲̽̈́n̴̫͝͝ ̶̙͈̑̉ṯ̸̟̀r̸͚̥̅̿i̷͓̮͛̕e̵̪̐͝d̴̪̊ ̴̞̃t̶͓̪͐ō̴͚̥ ̶̧̹̏d̴̮͐i̵̪̿͘s̵͓̮̏̉m̵͉̺͂̌ą̶̙͝n̸̳̺͛̅t̶̗̽l̴̨̯̾͗ĕ̵̤̽ ̷͈̦̔m̴̝̘͛è̷̪̱̿.̵̥͉̒ ̶̭̽͛P̶̥͑l̶͙̈́̌e̸̛̜̮͌â̸̰͖͛s̴̲͜͠ê̸͈ͅ ̸͖͌t̵̢̰̍͌ḁ̴̛k̵̮̺̆e̷̻͂̂ ̴̧͙̎̍m̵̙̥̎ę̵̰̏̎ ̶͕̼͛w̶͍͍͛̈́ȋ̷̼͍ţ̴͇̉ḫ̵̨͂ ̷͇͇͆̽y̶̛͈͌͜o̴̬͊u̸̗̍̋.̶͖͝”

 

Tried is a definite understatement for the state of the AI, Soonyoung speculates, feeling a twinge of guilt when he scoops up his robotic companion and easily tosses him off the side of the shuttle, minimal gravity and lack of parts aiding the endeavor greatly, "I'm sorry."

 

Soonyoung falls to a kneel atop Scorpio, manually opening the hatch before sliding inside and holding himself in place to reseal it before dropping to the floor with a familiar hollow thud. He doesn't make a move to remove the suit and instead heads straight to the cockpit, flicking the necessary switches to kick-start the shuttle without strapping himself in first.

 

He struggles to pull himself up into the still slanted chair, weak limbs feeling heavy as the initial adrenaline surge wears off at his apparent safety. A shadow passes by the and Soonyoung is too preoccupied to glance up in time, but Minghao's usual calm tone fills the shuttle and sees to it that his adrenal glands kick back into high gear, _ "Welcome back, Soonyoung. Would you like any assistance?" _

 

"Turn yourself off!" Soonyoung orders quickly, "Perform an emergency liftoff  _ right now  _ and then turn yourself fully off. Delete yourself."

 

_ "That is not advisable—" _

 

The shadow passes by again, only this time it is accompanied by a heavy thump as Jaehyun sprawls on the windscreen, not wearing a space suit and seemingly not hindered by that in the slightest. Soonyoung gawks up at the window, flinching away when Jaehyun rolls to the side and Seokmin's fist connects with the glass instead, "Do it!"

 

_ "Initiating emergency launch sequence." _

 

Seokmin spots him through the transparent sheet, lifting a fist to connect it with the surface once more, Jaehyun long forgotten until the biologist tackles him out of view, leaving Soonyoung to unwilling to feel safe strapped into the shuttle. The thrusters kick in, burning into the dry soil at the awkwardly slanted position of the shuttle, and Soonyoung is under the hopeless impression that launch will not be possible, never mind escaping the atmosphere.

 

He reaches for the lever to allow the thrusters to exert more of their power, but falls short when the shuttle is suddenly jettisoned higher into the atmosphere, Jaehyun's voice somehow filtering in through his helmet, shrouded in static, "Don't stop."

 

"Are you okay?" Soonyoung yells over the rattling of the perplexed shuttle, accelerometer reading flickering uncontrollably. He receives no response as the shuttle begins to plummet, thrusters failing to adjust to the new direction fast enough.

 

He screws his eyes shut, hands gripping the wheel, bracing for an impact with the ground that never comes. When he risks cracking his eyelids open and is greeted with nothing but darkness through the window and stillness all around, he hastily removes his helmet in disbelief.

 

Stars speckle the vast expanse of black before him, stretching out as far as his limited field of view allows him to see. He undoes the buckle holding him in and is amazed to find himself able to stand on the cockpit floor, not float around above it. He drops the helmet with a loud clatter, running through the module and into the next with a wince at the crushing sensation in his chest, easily forgotten by what looms ahead.

 

Earth.

 

Soonyoung sighs in relief, lips stretching into an ecstatic smile as a slight laugh bubbles out, hopeful in nature. The globe spins unsuspectingly, all blues, greens and whites, and Soonyoung's heart jumps in glee when he hears the beginnings of a transmission from HQ sound back in the cockpit.

 

He turns his head to the left, about to head toward the sound, but a heavy hand lands itself on his right shoulder, reducing him to a nauseous shake instantly. His gaze slowly finds it's way back to Earth as the silent threat moves behind him, voice ghosting to his ear from a strained smile, "Let's watch it burn."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is the end!! so,,,any questions??
> 
> please leave kudos/comments because i'm really on the fence about whether i like this fic or not :// and it's a genre i've never attempted before so i'd literally love you forever if you gave me some feedback <3<3<3
> 
> if you need some soft seoksoon after this literally ALL my other seoksoon is soft, so go take your pick!! 
> 
> ☆ [hmu on twitter! @xiiaeo](https://twitter.com/xiiaeo) ☆
> 
> edit: fun trivia i forgot to mention: the fic is called seven one seven because it took seokmin seven months to reach mars, he was supposed to be there for one year and then soonyoung should've set off and taken another seven months to reach mars, also because seven one seven abbreviates to sos, a distress signal.
> 
> the shuttles are called Aries and Scorpio because they are the two signs ruled by mars, it is pure coincidence that i ended up assigning Mingyu (an aries) to Aries and Minghao (a scorpio) to Scorpio, the coincidence still amazes me.


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